


Intermission

by gutterandthestars



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddles, Emil's Beautiful Hair, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Lalli Is Cats, Lalli's Pretty Face, M/M, More Napping, Mostly fluff though, Napping, Original character animal death, Spoilers for the First Adventure, The Kids Play Hair Salon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutterandthestars/pseuds/gutterandthestars
Summary: Emil tries to rebuild his life and help Lalli adjust to their new home in Sweden after their return from the Silent World.This story diverges from the comics at the end of the First Adventure. YellowTaffeta gave me such a gorgeous and thoughtful prompt, it was a joy to write for. I really hope I did it justice! Written for Yuletide 2018.





	Intermission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yellowtaffeta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellowtaffeta/gifts).



 

**CHAPTER 1**

The pale sun’s sinking towards the horizon and the driver is tapping her foot as Emil hauls the last of the baggage from the back of the cart to the porch of his aunt and uncle’s house. It’s still spring in Mora, the light low and washed out in the aftermath of showers of rain, but summer’s on the way and soon they’ll be in for a season of long bright days and short, barely dark nights. The air smells fresh and green but the roads are churned up with mud and manure, enough to warrant splitting the costs of a cart for the short journey from the train station to Siv and Torbjörn’s home.  

Whether or not it’s also Emil and Lalli’s home is currently up in the air.

The driver had hovered meaningfully until Torbjörn couldn’t avoid the issue and left her a tip, which from her thunderous face Emil concludes had been less than generous.  

Well. They’re not made of money.  

Torbjörn is now inside and Emil’s left with the awkward moment and the remainder of the luggage. The driver looks daggers at Emil until he’s done, bundling the bags inside the door, shutting it, and leaning his back against it. He takes a breath.

It’s been a long journey. Oh boy has it ever. He shrugs off his jacket and hangs it on a spare peg. The house smells familiar - of wax furniture polish and damp coats and those rosemary oil candles that Torbjörn likes. Ahead of him in the hallway, Siv and Torbjörn are struggling with more bags, both groaning thankfully that the children are at after-school classes and they’ve got time to settle in.

They disappear to take inventory of the state of their house, and he and Lalli are left in the atrium. The remaining member of the household, Bosse, watches imperiously from atop a side table, all cloudy grey fur and slitted blue eyes. Lalli’s half asleep, standing up, propped against the wall.

“Hey, hey,” says Emil, cheerfully, “home now. Let’s get our bags upstairs. We’ll get some rest and maybe some food and unpack later.” He slaps him on the shoulder, which is enough for Lalli to slit his eyes and glare. Emil gives him a hopeful little smile and beckons his head in the direction of the stairs.

"I’m not punching you, come on.”

Lalli peels himself from the wall and follows listlessly.  Emil frets internally, glancing back to make sure he’s following.

It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine.

===

Emil has been living on trains, in the back of a truck, in dilapidated buildings, out in the open, locked in a glass box on a boat, in rented lodging in Reykjavik, then on another boat and then trains again for the better part of eight months now and he is sincerely done. This place, familiar though it is - was? He’s not sure - feels palatial. It’s even big enough for he and Lalli to take up residence in separate rooms which, yeah.

Mixed feelings. Mixed.  

He just wants to know Lalli’s safe.

They do have to negotiate which of the Västerström family’s spare rooms they take. The options are: guest room, in which Emil would usually stay, or box room. Emil had been almost prepared to be magnanimous and let Lalli have the bigger room, but Lalli takes one look at the tiny cupboard-with-a-futon-mattress-on-the-floor with the dark wooden fittings and cool blue walls, flings in his bags and his rifle, disappears inside, and slams the door.

Emil is left in the corridor with his mouth half open, mid train of thought. “Okay!” he yells through the door, “I’ll just be over here then!”

Emil trudges over to what’s going to be his bedroom for the foreseeable future, thumbs the latch open and lets the door swing inwards. It’s as nice as he remembers. Polished pine floorboards stained a deep warm brown set off pale rag rugs that soften the floor under his feet, their colours worked in reds and white with thin strands of blue. There are several chests of drawers, and a row of cast iron hooks on the white walls so he can hang scarves and things that won’t fit in the drawers. The throw on the bed is a repeating pattern of multicoloured patchwork triangles, pieced to look like the interlocking silhouettes of cats.  

The double bed itself would be high enough for a person to roll under, if they were a small, skinny, fine-boned person who likes to sulk places people can’t see them.  

The window opens over a view of the grass springing green in the yard and Emil can see beyond to the street and the townhouses.  Then he jerks the curtains closed, turns and faceplants on the bed, the smell of the musty comforter mingling with the fresh air-after-rain and faint odour of horse apples from the street. He sinks into the soft give of the mattress, ignores the catch and tug of his hair against the buttons in the pillowcase and breathes.  

It’s good. Relaxing.

Now if only he could switch off his brain.

===

Discussions between the members of the expedition to the Silent World over what to do next had been less fraught than Emil might have considered.

Two weeks into their quarantine, projecting her voice through the thick glass of their individual isolation rooms, Sigrun had offered everyone employment with her regiment in Dalsnes.

“You’re all welcome!” she’d said, throwing out her arms in a gesture presumably meant to include them all, her presence an animated burst of colour and noise in their grey and white sanitised world.

“Reynir, I know you want to train up those mage-y skills at that Icelandic Academy of yours but really, what use is a mage in Iceland anyway? All your trolls are in the sea! In Norway we have real nasties coming over the mountain pass as well as whales in the fjords if that’s your thing. Come join us! You too, you little forest mage!” she’d waved over to Lalli, who had looked baffled. She’d turned to Mikkel - who’d been translating for Reynir - cupping her chin in her hands, elbow resting on the narrow desk. “Also, we need medical attention, like, all the time.” Mikkel had looked indulging until she carried on to say, “You won’t get fired this time - Mom and Dad listen to everything I say, and I say you can stay.”

Mikkel’s expression had turned exasperated pretty quickly.

“And,” she’d continued, squinting and pointing at him, “you can finally learn to cook, I’m sure that’ll be useful.”  

Mikkel had folded his arms and leaned back in his desk chair, which had creaked in complaint.  

Emil had a bet on with Lalli - well, he’d told Lalli they did and Lalli hadn’t argued, but since they were awake maybe, if he’s honest, the bet was more with himself -  that Mikkel would break his chair by the end of the voyage. It had been a close thing a couple of times but his wager had yet to collect.

“Maybe you want to come with me to Bornholm,” said Mikkel. Sigrun had swept her eyes up and down his smug posture and said, “Don’t be ridiculous. What would I do in Bornholm? Feed cows, milk pigs?”

“Yes. You could milk pigs.”

“Nope, you’re coming to meet my folks and my regiment and learning to cook and we could always use some brute strength to fix fences and stuff like that, honestly, Dalsnes is way better than Denmark.”

Mikkel seemed to have been marshalling himself to object, but he had also leaned back some more and the chair had collapsed, depositing Mikkel on his backside on the shiny grey linoleum.

Emil had stood up and crowed “Ten points to me!” before realising he’d said it out loud and the rest of the evening was spent stammering apologies and yelling and sulking and Lalli had curled up under his own bed and smirked quietly in his sleep.

===

Emil flips over onto his back, taking advantage of the space afforded by the wide bed, one hand on his chest, the other flung out sidelong. His knuckles catch on the patchwork and he twists his fingers and fiddles with a loose thread.

He thinks about Lalli in the hallway earlier. Spooked, sad, awkward. Not that he’d ever looked comfortable in this house - even when sprawled over the furniture and fighting with Bosse he’d seemed wary. That time, when they’d first met, before they’d really set off on the Expedition, feels like a long time ago for Emil.

It all blurs, those few days of travel and new acquaintances and the buzz of excitement for an opportunity to prove himself, be a hero, show them all. His memories from back then - less than a year ago - only really become clear to him after the Dalahasten train, horror cauterised each moment onto his nerves: the crunch of bone and spurt of inhuman blood, the heart shaped earring dangling delicately from a festering lump of flesh and disjointed bone.

A monstrous voice croaking ‘Help Me’.

Lalli in his arms, Lalli giving his hair a business-like shuffle, Emil’s every muscle stiff and trembling, sick from adrenaline.

Emil shakes his head to dislodge the images. He’ll keep them, sure, but he doesn’t need them taking up space at the front of his brain right this second.

“It’s going to be alright, Lalli,” he says, to the empty room, “I’m going to make it alright.” That’s a promise he’s not qualified to keep but since Lalli’s not actually there he figures the thought is what matters. And as far as he’s able, he’ll try. He really will.

Lalli might seem the type to shrug-and-move-on but Emil’s pretty sure there’s distress under there somewhere. Emil’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

===

By the end of the second week of quarantine the others had made tentative plans.  

Reynir would stay where his family could keep an eye on him, and train at the Academy of Seidur.  His brother had dropped in when he could, apparently to drip feed news and exclaim raptures over Reynir’s mage powers, even though they were _clearly inferior_ to Lalli’s. He didn’t understand a word of it, but it had been all Emil could do not to roll his eyes.

Who’s he kidding? He’d rolled his eyes _almost constantly._

Mikkel and Sigrun would go to Dalsnes, with the promise of employment for Mikkel. Emil had fun imagining it. Mikkel in Norway would be easy fodder for abuse. On the other hand Mikkel was also an utter, utter bastard who was, by all accounts, used to large loud families and getting his own back ruthlessly, so Emil thinks he’ll probably be fine.  Miraculously, Sigrun seems occasionally to listen to him. At this point you couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar and strategically placed explosives so whatever they are to each other, they’re a pair. Mikkel is the only one on Sigrun’s list.

Emil’d been happy for them.  He loves Sigrun, and he respects Mikkel.

He got it. He couldn’t imagine letting Lalli go back home to Finland and never knowing if he was okay, or if he was eating properly, or if he’d settled down, had a family.

Emil’s brain had balked a little at that one.

And he’d been anxious. Because at that point neither he or Lalli had said anything about what their plans were or what they wanted and they didn’t share enough vocabulary to have had that discussion and Emil _didn’t know what to do._ He’d thought about taking Sigrun up on her offer, but after months under her command he wasn’t sure he wanted to adjust to the Norwegian way of life.  Too many serious injuries for his liking.

His own life plans, when he’d thought about it, before the Expedition, looked like being lauded as a hero - somehow, anyhow - commanding a troop of cleansers, settling down in a nice house somewhere in Sweden and marrying some girl with a tidy figure and lots of money. He’s only nineteen, nearly twenty, he had - and still has - got lots of time for that. But somehow, late at night, in the dark on the narrow quarantine cot thinking Deep Thoughts, he couldn’t see himself fitting into that fantasy any more.  

Emil hadn’t _known_ what he wanted.  Still doesn’t, really.

He still wanted the money, the recognition and the girl. He just felt… out of sorts… now with that idea. He also wasn’t about to give up on the closest friendship he’s ever had. He’d thought about that too. Lalli could live next door - they use scouts in the army in Sweden, he’d just never worked with one - so Emil could make sure he was okay and Emil could introduce him to girls.

Still curled in the dark, fretting over his future, Emil’s reverie had been cut short by sleep.  

Then the fairy tale farce his life had become had thrown him an opportunity.

===

_Emil dreamed._

_He found himself standing in his old winter clothes in a grey, green forest of tall pines. Smells and tastes were muted on his palette, but he could hear the plink, plunk of water dripping into pools and feels the squelch of mud and sod underfoot.  He’d seen Lalli in the distance, chin in his hands, lying on his stomach on some wooden duckboards. Emil had gone over and eased himself down cross legged on the boards next to him._

_“Hey,” he’d said._

_“Hey,” said Lalli back._

_“You decided what you want to do when we get off this boat?” Emil’d asked._

_“No. Yes. Go with Onni? Go home.” His voice had broken a little on ‘home’ and Emil just wanted to smooth his hand over Lalli's arm but it wasn’t going to be as comforting for him as it was for Emil, so, no._

_Emil had instead picked at a seam on his own coat. “You could stay with me. If you wanted. I don’t mind you know, if you wanted to go back to Finland, but if you wanted to? You could. Come to Sweden? Stay with me?”_

_Lalli kicks his heels.  Looks away. Looks up. Looks down. Looks sideways, at Emil._

_“Maybe.”_

_Emil feels the start of something gassy and buoyant rising in his chest._

_“Really?”_

_“What would I do?” Lalli had asked._

_“Well, we have scouts in the army? You could do that still? It’d be different. More people. But you’ve got loads of experience, they’ll take you.”_

_“And I’d live with you.”_

_“Yeah. I was thinking we stay with Siv and Torbjörn, you met them, my aunt and uncle, we went to their house before. We could pay rent - you know, with our army salary.”_

_“In the house with the noisy children?”_

_“They’re not so bad. And I’d keep them off you. It’d be safe. No outbreaks. No trolls. Not on the inside of the walls anyway.”_

_“And work with weird Swedish people?”_

_“I’m a weird Swedish person and we get along just fine, don’t we?”_

_Lalli had looked like he was thinking about it.  Emil had held his breath._

_“Yeah. Okay.”_

_“Okay, okay? That’s a yes?”_

_“Yes.”_

_Emil had grinned, Lalli had got up and wandered off. And when they'd both woken up, that had been that._

===

The sun is almost set now, orange light seeping under the bottom of the red and white curtains and filling up the room with a low, warm glow. He can hear the children are back and playing downstairs, and his stomach cramps with hunger in response to the smell of frying onions drifting up from the kitchen.

He should get up, get Lalli, get food.

Emil’s still thinking.

Mora is not Emil’s home town. That being said, nothing in him wants to go back up north, see his parents. There is nothing for him there that he wants to go back to. He can’t imagine it; can’t possibly fit back into his old life. Can’t imagine looking them in the eye, things being what they are.

He’s too… big?

He’s sloughed off the skin of whoever he used to be and his new skin is still thin and fragile. Tender and easily damaged. The last thing he wants is to be around people who _knew him before_ and have all these expectations - of his achievement and his character, or lack thereof.  Torbjörn and Siv are bad enough, but at least they know what’s happened to them all. They’ll still call him by diminutive nicknames and scold him and nag but underneath it all they’ll know.

===

After they’d finally disembarked in Reykjavik, settled into hired lodgings and regrouped, Emil had listened to Sigrun and Mikkel debrief his aunt and uncle and the rest of the support team.  He sat, grim and seething, feeling everything he’d let settle during their time in quarantine get churned up and aired for an audience.

Siv had cried. Torbjörn had squeezed his shoulder. They’d both asked him to come back with them before he made any decisions about what to do next.

Emil had already assumed anyway. If they’d not offered he could have hired a room, he supposed, he and Lalli, assuming their promised salaries turned up.

The problem had been Lalli’s cousin Onni.  Emil hadn’t met Onni before Reykjavik, although Tuuri had talked about him. From her descriptions of his personality, Emil had expected someone timid and rotund, a male version of Tuuri but without the curiosity, too scared to venture into the Silent World.

Emil hadn’t been expecting him to be so big. And fierce. And looming.

There’d been a lot of looming.

Emil, not for the first time, had cursed the fates that made him a short Swede.

He’d watched as Lalli and Onni’s conversation got more and more heated. Onni was staying, at least for a while, to train with the Icelandic mages on the understanding that he need have nothing to do with Reynir whatsoever. Ever.

The arguments for Lalli to stay in Iceland too were very logical and Onni was very forceful in making them. You need to train, you have so much to learn, and - unspoken but not less clear - you’re all I’ve got left.

Lalli’s argument was, as it was in Finnish, unintelligible, but Emil assumed it boiled down to “I don’t want to.”

In the end, Onni pleading his case even as they stood on the docks preparing to depart, Lalli had shouldered his pack, snapped on his gloves and padded over to stand next to Emil. Onni may have been the second stubbornest bastard Emil had ever met, but the _most_ stubborn bastard was the one now standing shoulder to shoulder with him and rumbling ominously with slitted eyes and his hood over his ears, shooting warning glances at his cousin.

Emil had taken a moment to feel bad - Lalli was now the only thing Onni had in the world that’s familiar, that’s his, and he’d made it pretty clear he’d made his choice and it wasn't with Onni. Emil had been - well, extremely relieved is what he had been - but still. They clearly loved each other in their quaint Finnish ways. He’d elbowed Lalli.

“Hey - don’t leave it like this.”

Lalli slitted his eyes further.

He’d shifted his attention to Onni and attempted a fix in broken Finnish.  “Hey, you two can still catch up, can’t you? In the… dream place? Where you go in sleep? You can still talk?”

Onni had looked at Emil like he’d been some unfortunate street deposit clinging to his shoe. No, worse, like something that eats things that stick to people’s shoes. Like a slug or something creeping.

Almost (almost but not quite) like a troll.

All repulsion and disgust and naked hurt and pain and not hiding it at all.  

Emil had immediately gone into panic mode before the calmer part of his head - who somehow now spoke in Mikkel’s voice - had told him that he could afford to be magnanimous here.  He’d prefer it if everyone thought well of him, but if that wasn't possible, he could take being hated for a purpose.

“Ooookay. Goodbye then.”

He’d nodded to Onni, Trond and Taru, hugged Sigrun and Mikkel goodbye, given Reynir a snotty handshake which that awful Icelander had turned into a messy embrace, and boarded the boat to Sweden with his aunt and uncle, Lalli following them up the gangplank. And then they were on their way.

===

Eventually Emil rolls off of his bed and drags himself out his door, down the corridor and stirs Lalli.  He gently pushes him down the corridor, leads them downstairs and fends off a horde - IS three a horde? They feel like a horde - of curious children, eager to tug at their hair.

The kids have grown - “You’re so tall!” he exclaims, and gets a pang as he remember Tuuri.  Lalli’s ducked past them and Emil gives Anna, Hakan and Sune a final group hug before following the smell of meatballs into the dining room.    

“You’ll need jobs,” Torbjörn tells them, breezily, over dinner. “You’re family, Emil and well, _djävlar_ \- we sure owe you Lalli, so no need to worry about rent right this second but if you want to contribute… Uh, I mean…” Torbjörn trails off and Emil rolls his eyes.

"Yes, yes, of course, well I’m sure the cleansers will jump at the chance to have me back now I have field experience,” says Emil, flapping an imperious hand.  He’s not so sure, really, but it doesn’t do to worry anyone, least of all himself, so he preens and smiles and panics a little internally. “And Lalli will join me, isn’t that right?”

Lalli looks bewildered, and Emil reminds himself that it’s his job to look after him now, here in Sweden in a strange place with all these people. They finish dinner and Emil trails Lalli up the stairs. Emil’s getting better. With the Finnish thing. He’s still crap at it, but he gives it a go.

“Talk… work? tomorrow, Lalli?” he says "Or now’s good?”

Lalli shrugs and yawns, his eyes looks bruised.  Emil ignores the small pang he feels when Lalli turns away and goes off to his own room without a word.

It’s good to have their own space. It is.

“…Goodnight?” he says to the empty corridor.

===

That night, Emil sleeps without dreaming.

**CHAPTER 2**

Emil wakes to bright morning sunshine in his face. He pushes the curtains aside to see the pinks and golds of sunrise illuminating wisps of cloud against the eggshell brittle blue of wide sky. There’s a low hanging mist that softens the view from Emil’s window as he slumps against the window frame and contemplates his life. Yesterday he was still buzzed from travel, chafing against the memory of a month of quarantine, head down and all he had to do was get here.

Now he IS here and he’s facing the rest of his life, and while there were points over the last few months he was sure he wouldn’t get one of those, he’s here, he’s survived and now he’s gotta work out what living looks like.

He stretches and takes stock.  Everything looks better in the morning. It’ll be fine. He’s got his uncle and aunt, he’s got three cousins, he’s got Lalli - yeah, okay. He’s pulling himself together, because if he’s spending the morning freaking out god knows what Lalli’s doing, waking up in a strange place.

Emil hurries to dress, fiddles with buttons and fastenings.

Maybe the idea of being here in a town with Emil is going to be different to the reality, where there are vehicles and people everywhere and you have to go through security checkpoints to get to the forest. There’s nowhere to run here.

It helps knowing Lalli did actually decide to be here and had in fact been quite emphatic about it.

If Lalli really didn’t want to be here he could go.

Actually that’s a worrying thought, and it’s one Emil has while he’s tying his shoes.

Emil is no stranger to coaxing Lalli into joining the rest of the world, day after long day, if he has to. Nothing’s ever guaranteed, though.  

Emil hurries into the hallway and goes to knock on Lalli’s door, only to find it empty.  

Oh hell.

After Emil panics, thunders downstairs and bursts into the kitchen he finds Lalli serenely munching breakfast over at the counter away from the cacophony made by the three monsters at the table, shooting them suspicious glances and chewing ham.

“Why does he get to sit over there when we have to sit at the table?”

“Mom, mom, I wanted bilberry not currant!”

“Can I Have More Butter Please?!”

“Why can’t I sit at the worktop? I’m just as grown up as he is.”

“Mom. I need three case studies of gruesome troll mystery disappearances for school, are there any in the family? I need two hundred words by my second class? Mom? Mom!”

Emil can’t help the little smile, makes himself a sandwich and scoots up next to Lalli, bumping him with an elbow.

Torbjörn breezes in and Siv glares and hisses, “They also are _your children!_ ” as she packs lunches.

“Morning boys!” says Torbjörn, in a false and hearty voice that’s certainly not fooling Emil, "I’m off to work - what’re your plans?”

 _“He’s not got work,”_ hisses Siv, in Emil’s ear, _“but it’s important to show the children we have things under control.”_ Emil smiles and keeps his eye-roll internal for once. He turns to his uncle.

“Oh, well I’ve not asked or anything but I thought I’d go re-enlist? If they’ll have me? And Lalli here, he’ll come with.”  

He assumes.

They’ve not talked about it since the boat, honestly hard to see how they’re going to really. Has he really dragged Lalli to a country where he speaks maybe a few words of the language and expects him to hold down a job? He’s not got any credibility as a mage here - there’s no such position in the Swedish military, no special treatment. And there’s not much call for scouts. Still, all his skills will be useful, he’ll just have to stick with Emil and they’ll make the best of it. They’ve had practice. _Fan_ , they’ve had practice.

“Hey Lalli, you wanna join up with me?”

Lalli shrugs.

“See?” says Emil. “It’ll be great.”

===

Emil and Lalli take to the streets of Outer Mora on foot, crocus and daffodils poking through the bright new grass on the verges, tulips threatening to break through soon too. It’s a pretty walk.

The town of Mora - Emil’s home for two years of schooling before he saw the flickering light of cleansing fire and joined up - is the western shore of a narrow neck between northern Lake Orsasjon and the southern Lake Siljan. Tales from the old world, seventy years before Emil was born - so, ancient history - say scholars believed the lake formed long ago when a huge stone fell from the sky and made a hole so big it filled with water. Emil’s got no idea if this is true or not, but he always liked the story and he can imagine the skies raining fire and burning rocks, the forests ablaze for miles around, cleansed in seconds, making way for new growth, the rush of the waters filling the vast chasm with a boom.  

He thinks it’s where he first got a kindling of his love for fire, though he did run around hiding under his coat for fear of falling sky-rocks for a few weeks before he got told to pack it in.  

He tries to mime this story to Lalli through a combination of hand gestures, Swedish spoken slowly and the Finnish words for “lake”, “sky” and “fire” - at least he thinks so. Lalli shows no evidence of having understood any part of the whole pantomime and makes his ‘these Swedes are crazy’ face.

They roll into the army recruitment office mid-morning. Like most of the town, it’s a clapboard building built during the time of the Old World.  It’s painted a cheerful blue with yellow highlights, a symbol of pride and peppy enthusiasm for the Army, and when Emil pushes open the well oiled door they find pictures on the walls of Cleansers, past and present, and posters advertising the military life.  A few even date back to the Old World.

Lalli drifts up to them to run his narrow fingers over the paper and trace the colours.  He’s apparently fascinated by one depicting an Old World soldier, her clothes, her cap, the wall behind her and even her soft, serious, oval face are painted in blocks of greens and browns and black, brutal and strange. Only two things stand out: her wide, winter blue eyes, the whites glowing in stark contrast with the paint on her face, and a rainbow flag patch stitched onto the sleeve over her bicep. The printed caption at the bottom reads ‘ _Some Things You Shouldn’t Have To Camouflage_ ’ followed by smaller words that Emil only skims. Lalli scrapes his fingernail over the girl’s face and traces the rainbow patch, and turns to Emil and says something unintelligible, in Finnish, too fast for Emil to catch.

“Oi! You! Don’t touch that!” someone bellows and they both jump - Emil almost to attention, Lalli ducking behind Emil.  

A man wearing sergeant’s stripes with a sun browned face and short salt and pepper hair glares at them from behind the tall desk at the back of the room. Emil stiffens his resolve and his shoulders and steps forward.

“We would like to enlist, Sergeant,” he says formally, and proceeds to introduce Lalli who is attempting to look presentable at Emil’s side, wide eyed peering at the man’s uniform as if cataloguing something. Emil can’t see any obvious stains.

Emil takes a breath and does his best to explain.

“So let me get this straight,” clarifies the sergeant, “You, Emil Västerström, who left our Ostersund regiment months ago because he found a better offer, would like to reenlist along with…” he looks Lalli up and down, who’s tuned out and is absently viewing the posters on the walls, the chairs and the flies in the cobwebs in the window with familiar passivity, “This Finn who doesn’t speak Swedish and who you claim is a mage.”

“And a scout. With extensive military experience,” says Emil, belligerent.

“So you say,” sniffs the sergeant.

Emil can feel himself blushing, angry, ashamed and if this had been a few short - long - months ago he’d have given the man a piece of his mind, stormed out and never looked back. But he likes cleansing - the fire, the explosions, the purpose, if not really so much the people - and can’t imagine doing anything else. And he’s got Lalli to consider. If Lalli can’t find a job he might leave and Emil’s not about to start even thinking about that. So he pulls every ounce of strength he can muster and looks the man in the eye. “He can fire a gun, he’s killed hundreds of trolls, he can run for hours on end when he needs to, knows how to use explosives, and I can translate.”

Sort of.

Emil turns to Lalli and speaking loudly and slowly - in Swedish - says “ISN’T THAT RIGHT, LALLI?”

“Yes," says Lalli, also in Swedish.

Huh. Well.

Emil gestures with open hands as if to say ‘behold, a coherent response’ and looks hopeful at the man who sneers.

It strengthens Emil’s resolve. He firms up his jaw, jerks his chin and then pauses. Arrogance probably won’t help here. New tack. Begging.

“Please. We have references,” says Emil, pulling papers out his pocket, handing them over. And they do. An official quarantine stamped certification proving their last medical and their immune status, an expedition summary report and two testimonials each - not translated, but mutually intelligible enough to pass.  

One’s written by Mikkel - Emil’s read it and it’s fair and balanced and highlights their skills and he seems to have exercised restraint over his baser impulses, since as far as he can tell it contains no lies for humorous effect whatsoever. Which is just as it should be because Mikkel is NOT FUNNY.

Unfortunately the other one’s written by Sigrun, which is about one step up from being written in crayon. Still. Norwegian captain of a troll hunting regiment.  It’s full of phrases like “right hand warrior” “tough little fella” and “stubborn - I like that in a troll hunter.”

Emil shouldn’t strictly speaking have read Lalli’s references but neither Sigrun nor Mikkel had sealed the envelopes and Emil had furtively snuck out the papers and read anyway, and maybe got a little teary reading about Lalli through the eyes of their team leaders. Sigrun had said “Weird, tough, knows his way around a rifle, killed tons of trolls, want him on my team any time.” Mikkel had talked about resilience and loss and initiative and intuition. They’d both used the word “survivor” - although Sigrun had had to take a couple of goes at getting the spelling right - and it twists Emil up inside since it’s necessary to say, since they’ve all got this hollow space tucked up inside them that every so often to Emil feels as a physical ache, something that without much persuading he could fall into and never climb out of.

The recruitment sergeant reads carefully, back stiff. His eyebrows rise higher and higher as he parses each document. Occasionally he looks at them both with disbelief, horror, pity.

Eventually, as Emil stands there and waits, Lalli drifting from wall to wall, the man puts the papers down and clears his throat.

“Ahem. Well. We’ll take you, Västerström, but I still don’t know about this one…” he says, gesturing across the room at Lalli and Emil’s heart pounds and his brain plays through the things he could say, the arguments he could make.

_Give us a chance, we’re partners, you take me, you take him, you need him, I don’t think he’d stay here if he didn’t have a job, please, please, you need him. You need him._

He hates the very devil out of this: surrendering control of his future to some stranger who could at any time take everything away from him. There’s a spot between his shoulder blades tingling as if ghosts are breathing down his neck, he’s clenching muscles he’d rather not think about and he can feel his breathing getting shallow.  He’d have thought he’d have got used to fear in the Silent World, hell knows they didn’t have much control there either, but at least with trolls you knew what they wanted - they wanted to eat you, that was sort of understandable. This, this PERSON, holds Emil’s life in his hands and doesn’t even know the power he’s got. Emil waits for the axe to fall and tries not to let his lip tremble. He steals a look at Lalli, who seems to have sensed Emil’s vibrating concern and shuffles up next to him, so they’re standing shoulder to shoulder, Lalli peering at Emil’s face occasionally.  Emil swallows.

“Give him a chance. Please.”

“He’s Finnish!” objects the man. “He doesn’t even speak the language.”

“Yeah, he’s _Finnish,_ ” yells Emil, “Which means he’s spent his whole _life_ in danger: living in fear of an outbreak, going up against beasts and trolls and giants just outside his front door!” And his eyes prickle, thinking of Tuuri, patiently explaining that this safety Emil’s taken for granted his whole life is something precious and strange, and how her caution wasn’t enough, in the end anyway. “Imagine never knowing if the people you traded with one day would ever survive the next season.”

“Okay, okay, I’m just saying he’s different is all, it’ll be hard for him to take orders, fit in, bond with a team…” and that’s just ripe because Emil’s _seen_ Lalli do all of this and more besides and this man does not get to _talk shit_ about _his team partner_.

“Hey!” snarls Emil before noticing that Lalli is starting to tense and curl into himself, so Emil forces himself to breathe and calm down and make this a safe space, which is really all he’s got to give here.

“It’s okay,” he says in Finnish, to Lalli. Emil takes another deep breath, turns back to the sergeant and jabs a finger at the poster Lalli had been looking at when they walked in.  

“What about this, then? Isn’t this our, our cultural heritage or something? Aren’t we supposed to be…” he peers at the yellowing paper and narrow, old world style text “…inclusive and stuff. See: ' _In the armed forces_ ’," quotes Emil, reading from the poster, “' _we treat each other with respect and see other people’s differences as a strength. We are an inclusive organisation where everyone serving and contributing will feel welcomed and respected.’_ Differences! As a strength!” He folds his arms as if he’s made the ultimate point.

 _“Fan i helvetes!”_ says the man, throwing up his hands, “That’s not what that poster’s about!”

Emil turns to peer at the poster, confused. “Seems like it’s what it’s about” he says.

“It’s about _sexuality,_ ” says the man, exasperated, folding his arms “And gender. It’s supposed to say that we in the army are proud to have gay people and gender-non-conforming people and all kinds of people serving in our forces.”

“Well duh. Why would anyone care enough to make a poster about that?” asks Emil, because well obviously.

“So that poster isn’t relevant to your argument,” says the man, before stopping, blinking and then looking uncertain, unfolding his arms. “Unless… oh. Oh, right.” he stands up and a lot of the objectionable frown drops off his face. “I see. This lad needs a job to stay here in Sweden? With you?”

“Yes!” says Emil, “Yes, exactly.” He’s relieved and a little surprised this man has made an about-face so fast, from stubborn objection to somehow reading Emil’s mind. “Yes, and if he can’t get a job I don’t know if I can persuade him to stay and he needs to stay. He needs a reason to stay.”

“Seems like he’s got at least one reason to stay,” says the sergeant, with a ghost of a smile, nodding towards Lalli who’s now tucked up against Emil’s side looking from one to the other with a little frown but seemingly sensing this is something he’ll just have to catch up on later.  

Emil raises an imperious eyebrow. “Well obviously, he’s got _one_ reason,” he says because yes, Lalli is his best friend. He doesn’t know if that’s enough reason, but that’s why they’re _here._ To make sure.

The man smiles properly now.

“And you’ll translate? And he’ll learn Swedish?”

“Oh, yes. Yes! He already is,” Emil assures him. "Lalli, say something.”

Lalli shakes his head vigorously.

“Okay, okay,” says the sergeant, holding up his hands. “He’s shy. I get it. You’re in. Report first thing tomorrow morning, you’ll be issued with your equipment and assigned to an experienced team. And first sign of trouble you’re out of here."

Emil is _so unbelievably grateful_ his hands are shaking. “Yes, yessir…” he manages.

The sergeant hands them two forms for their signature. Emil can’t quite believe it, but signs his, only to see the man watching him.  And this, this is the first test. If he can’t get Lalli to understand what this is, what is needed, they’ll have fallen at the first hurdle, except as Emil understands it Lalli’s been filling in forms since he was a tiny thing and he takes the pen, signs his name where Emil’s barely noticeably shaking finger is pointing, and Emil, face in a parody of a grin relieved beyond all articulation, hands the forms back.

The man gives them carbon copies, charcoal paper pressed impressions onto the paper below. Emil pats Lalli on the arm, makes sure he makes eye contact and says “I’ll hang onto these.” Tucks them away in his pocket and composes himself.

“Just want to be sure,” Emil says to the sergeant.

“Yeah? Mine’s disorganised too. Lose his head if it wasn’t screwed on. Hell of a cook, though,” he says, and winks at Emil.

“Uh. Uh huh?” says Emil, unsure. Grabs Lalli and points at the door, thumbs up. Lalli raises his eyebrows, looks at the man and says “Thank you” in Swedish.

The man salutes them, grinning. “Proud to have you boys on the team. Get out of here, pipsqueaks,” he says, flapping one hand and Emil beams back before hustling Lalli out of the door and into the busy street.

Three steps out the door, standing on the kerb, Emil raises his face and fists to the sky.

Yessssssssss.

Purpose. Employment. Explosives. Fire. Lalli by his side, for now at least. He gives a little skip, leaping into the air, punching one fist towards the sky before turning to Lalli who’s stepped back, wary, presumably in anticipation of a punch he doesn’t want.

“I wasn’t going to, I hadn’t forgotten this time,” he grins. “Come on, you. We’re getting pastries to celebrate.” He leads Lalli away with a palm between his shoulder blades, which Lalli tolerates, as the sergeant waves from the door.

That went surprisingly well, Emil thinks.

===

Lalli hovers outside the bakery while Emil buys them buns. Then Emil’s treated to the sight of Lalli’s face as he’s eating pastries - which he’ll likely only be able to afford for another few short weeks, but nothing in life is guaranteed so he’s going to get the most out of this while he can.

They sit on a park bench and munch through the cream buns before sprawling out, too full and happy. Emil’s got his arms stretched out along the back of the bench, Lalli’s cross legged picking at the crumbs from the bag in his lap. Above them the sun is as high as it’s going to get, their coats are flapping open, passers by are going about their midday business, ornamental trees are budding in pale yellows and pinks. Perfect.

“That guy seemed nice at the end,” he says. “I have to say he got the point about you needing a job to stay here much faster than I thought he would, once I explained.”

Lalli grunts in response and tips back his head - Emil hears the soft rasp of hair against his sleeve and feels the warmth of Lalli’s neck through his coat as it brushes his outstretched arm - and empties the crumbs from the bag into his mouth.

 

**CHAPTER 3**

Week one is sort of anti-climactic.

Emil and Lalli get issued their uniforms and gear, they’re put through a short orientation and are assigned - together - as guards for one of the cat squads.

Emil’s a little wistful - no fire, not this time of year. They’ll be transferred over when the cleansing cycle begins in earnest in summer, but it’s spring still and there’s work to do picking over the demolished and charred remains of last years efforts.

The snows of winter should have mostly frozen everything to death. It never does quite get them all, but the technique is pretty effective - so though the search-and-purge process needs to be thorough, in general it’s a lot of painstaking grid-walking interspersed with the occasional short flurry of excitement.

Emil had never needed to get physically involved with putting down a troll at all before the Silent World. Most of what survives the cold tends to be inherently tough but will be worn down and weak by this point. None of the broken and weary abominations they encounter during their first week put up much of a fight and though he’s careful - of course - Emil’s nerves barely register as he wields his knife.

He’s responsible for one kill, which he manages neatly without getting anything in his hair - hot, rotten, sweet smelling blood welling over his gloves, warming his hands before seeping through his fingers onto the ground.

Their squad seem impressed, for which Emil is relieved. Oscar, their guard captain, is a burly veteran in his forties with a beard that grows in gingery around the edges. The second in command is a tall, skinny blonde lieutenant in her late twenties who is cheery and friendly with all of Sigrun’s competence but none of her manic energy.

The cat wranglers tend to keep to themselves and their charges, and the rest of the guard squad include a few career military types but no-one Emil clicks with. He finds himself teased for trailing the lieutenant, whose name is Ingrid, but to his surprise finds he doesn’t mind all that much.

They all seem to take Lalli in their stride, which helps.

He’d worried about this and spends a lot of time during the first week stealing sideways glances at his friend, taking inventory.  Emil had thought it would be hard for the Swedish teams to work with someone like Lalli but it turns out the cat squads are highly trained in managing difficult, capricious, prickly individuals that don’t speak Swedish and the only difference here is that the ones they’re used to are smaller and four legged and furry.

As the days go by, of all the social hurdles Emil had been expecting to trouble Lalli, it’s not the new people, situations, territory, strange cats or language barrier that Emil finds Lalli balking against the most - though he still seems wary over all that. No, the biggest problem is getting Lalli over his apparently pathological fear of the shower.

The purge part of the cleansing cycle is the most disgusting.

Sure, there’s the occasional burst of troll guts but the worst of it is the ash, soot and charcoal mingling with the mud, and the lack of vegetation underfoot means it’s free to turn to mush. Their uniforms, pristine at the beginning of the week, quickly become as stained and grey as the rest of the squad’s.  Their exposed skin is protected as much as possible with gloves and masks and long sleeves but, even so, they get crusted in charcoal rich mud which cracks and crumbles off their faces in soft, black flakes and gets nearly indelibly lodged most everywhere else.

On the up side, when they do wash it off, their skin is looking _great._

The end of every shift, the squad trudges through communal changing rooms and showers and _every damn time_ Emil has to drag Lalli and hold him under the water while the rest of the squad look on, snigger, and don’t help even a bit.

“For crying out loud, Lalli, you must have had _showers_ in Finland.”

“Mrrrrrrm!”

“You don’t like being messy! We aren’t going home covered in carbon dust and muck, I’m not being seen in the street with you looking like you fought a soot monster and lost!”

And it doesn’t get better. Every day is a struggle, Emil manhandling Lalli under the water, scrubbing his hair, trying to wash behind his ears and get Lalli clean while keeping his own dignity.  Emil always wins eventually, sliding on the tiles and cursing in Swedish, but it’s a fight, every day.

===

The other blight in Emil’s tentatively hopeful routine is that Lalli’s admittedly heroic efforts to work all day mean he’s very much done with being around people by evening. He eats family dinner, sitting at a safe distance, then hot-foots it upstairs.

And disappears.

The first time Lalli goes out to do devil-knows-what, alone in a strange city with no map, he finds Emil beforehand and taps him on the shoulder as he’s brushing his teeth. Their eyes meet in the mirror, Lalli’s sliding away hurriedly and Emil staring, toothpaste dripping onto his nightshirt.

“I’m going out. To run.” says Lalli, in Swedish, still not meeting Emil’s eyes. His own are red-rimmed and his eye sockets are smudged a deep, weary grey. He does grab a flannel and wipe the toothpaste from Emil’s shirt. “Be back. Before. In the morning.”

Emil’s first impulse is to argue, but by now he’s worked out that that’s futile with Lalli anyway, so he nods. Lalli needs space. He’s worked that out too.

At least he’s telling Emil.

Lalli leaves the bathroom and Emil goes to bed, pulling the patterned cat-quilt up to his neck and staring at the ceiling for a long, long time.

When Lalli returns in the middle of the night and wakes Emil by throwing gravel at his window, Emil makes a big show of demonstrating how there’s a spare key and it’s hidden HERE and this is how it works, look you turn it like this in the lock, well how was I to know you know what a key is, for all I know in Finland you use bars or something, and next time use it yourself and don’t wake me up!

And so on and so forth.

He sleeps again eventually.

===

At some point in the second week, Lalli wanders in to Emil’s room, looks at Emil’s worried face and crosses the rug to pat him on the head. He spouts some Finnish which Emil hopes is “I’ll be back, I’m not leaving forever” and crosses back to hop out of the window, drops to the ground and disappears into the night.

Emil imagines him perched on rooftops, running the streets, getting into people’s gardens, nothing left in the morning but suspicious footprints in the mud.

===

_That night he wakes - well okay, not wakes, dreams, but he’s conscious so what the devil is he supposed to call it? - to roiling clouds above the forest clearing, spongy moss underfoot and pools shimmering in the low light._

_He sits down next to Lalli, who’s sitting cross legged on his planks moodily poking at something on the bottom of his foot._

_“Where_ are _you?”_

_“In bed. I used the key.”_

_“You okay?”_

_“Yes. Daytime working is… tiring though. Aren’t there jobs that happen at night here?”_

_“Not really. The army does all its work in the day time. Scouting at night’s not safe. There’s guard shifts at night, I think? I don’t know. But I thought we agreed you and I would be working together?”_

_Lalli shrugs. “Eh,” he says._

_Emil panics. “What?”_

_“I like working with you, but I hate this,” says Lalli, letting his ankle drop to the ground and looking away. “Not all the time, but sometimes.”_

_Yeah, thinks Emil. That’s about right._

_“I hate that you hate it,” says Emil, “But we’re here and we need a place to live, and money to survive.”_

_“In Keuruu,” says Lalli, “We had food, we had work, we had somewhere to sleep, I didn’t have to work with other people.” Emil just breathes for a moment, but it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be anything else._

_“You’re gonna keep trying though, right?” asks Emil. Lalli scrubs the back of his hand across his nose._

_“Yeah.”_

_“Great,” says Emil, and kicks his feet against the boards._

===

Generally speaking though, its okay.

They both get a bit sad sometimes. Emil will turn to point out an interesting bit of Mora’s architecture to Tuuri before realising she isn’t there - won’t ever be there - and he catches Lalli’s eye and sighs. Sometimes he’ll do something _super cool_ with his knife or a flare and Lieutenant Ingrid will notice and tell him ‘well done’, but she won’t sling her arm round his neck like Sigrun would have, or call him a Viking or brag how this squad is the absolute best. She just smiles and is quietly impressed. He misses Mikkel, who would also have been quietly impressed but would have hid it with sarcasm. He even misses Reynir.

Well, a bit.

Look, it was once and it was only because he saw some sheep that reminded him of that stupid Icelandic face. Alright?

Showers are still a daily battle. Evenings are pretty good though. Lalli’s started to relax a bit and spend time with them all before he goes to bed, or goes out. That’s progress, Emil thinks.

At some point during week three, Emil and Lalli tramp mud through the house when they return. Siv yells at them and hands them mops, so Emil yells back and Lalli runs off upstairs while there’s yelling and all in all Emil’s previously decent mood is broken. He mops the floor regardless, slopping the dirty water around in the bucket and wiping up the mud to a chorus of spluts and splaps. He’s not going to sulk like a child.

Much.

Lalli slinks downstairs for dinner - he’s not yet managed to go a full meal at the family table, but it’s kinda crowded anyway so Emil doesn’t mind. Lalli skulks behind the counter, at the periphery of his vision, while Emil and his uncle and aunt and three cousins bicker their way through a meal and Emil gets to share today’s triumph over the creeping, tangled mass of former creatures they’d found all looped together in a half collapsed basement.

“That’s just great!” beams Torbjörn, a bit too brightly. Emil thinks he’s still subdued - of course he can’t talk about whether or not he’s had a successful job search while the children are sitting right there. Siv’s back at work but Torbjörn’s still looking. They both seem to be having a hard time adjusting to being back in Mora and Emil's a bit resentful - _they_ weren’t the ones freezing and dying and bleeding and lost in the forests and their own heads, what have they got to adjust to? Still, Emil understands keeping up appearances and plays along.

“Oh I am glad they are taking to Lalli,” says Siv, followed by, “Although, I do hope they don’t change their mind when you start the summer cleansing in earnest, I mean, his Swedish is still really not good…”

 _Thanks Siv_ , thinks Emil. They’re working on it already. It’s getting better.

They all glance at Lalli, who’s munching noodles with surprising delicacy over on the other side of the kitchen.

Lalli will be _fine._ He’s doing _fine._

Emil’s train of thought is interrupted by the kids who - three weeks in - haven’t yet got over their rapturous excitement at having Cousin Emil back with them. They want to play, dragging him to the living room, and Emil’s evening turns into a marathon session of “Hair Salon” as the three sit him on the rug in the middle of the room to twine and braid his hair and then brush it out, and then do it all over again, repeatedly.

Siv collapses on a sofa with an arm over her face and Torbjörn flings his long legs over her lap and wiggles his socked toes and snoozes too. Bosse ends up curled up on Torbjörn’s chest. The room feels warm and familiar and Emil gives back as good as he gets in the hair salon department, giving Anna pigtails and brushing Sune’s bob till he slumps sleepy against the coffee table - not that Emil’s ever seen coffee, but still, that’s what they’re _called._ And while there’s not much he can do with Hakan’s brunette crop he can fluff it with his fingers until it sticks up in every direction and the others squeal with joy.

Lalli’s actually made it into the living room and is watching them from the other sofa, though he pretends not to be when Emil turns around. Emil glances at Bosse who’s still draped over Torbjörn. Bosse and Lalli tend to keep each other in line of sight and poke at each other occasionally, but otherwise ignore each other’s existence. Emil sometimes finds them flopped against each other back to back on a sofa or chair, once even when Emil went into Lalli’s room without knocking, and each time they look embarrassed and pretend it hasn’t happened.

It’s a nice evening. The room is warm, the company is good, and in a few weeks Emil’s going to get to blow things up and burn stuff and have Lalli by his side - probably. It won’t be up to them and maybe Lalli will be more use as a scout, but he hopes the Army will keep them together.

For translation purposes.

Emil ponders all this while playing with the kids’ hair and letting them brush up and smooth his own golden strands.  Tonight he’s safe as houses - good, Swedish, proper houses - tonight, Lalli is spending his evening with, or at least adjacent to, people - not that Emil’s monitoring the situation or anything.  Emil’s musings are interrupted again by the three cousins, who’ve decided to all bundle on Lalli’s sofa, so he joins them to create a buffer for Lalli and they all end up squidged up together.

“Mrrr!” complains Lalli, scowling, before crawling up on the back cushions behind Emil and flopping down on his back along the top, draped behind Emil’s shoulders, knees fallen to the side to tuck up behind Emil’s left ear and one arm dangling loosely over Emil’s right shoulder, the other wrist over his eyes in a mirror of Siv’s posture on the other side of the room.

Emil can feel his face warm, oh he’s too old to blush, he’ll be twenty soon, he’s been an adult for some time, he’s military - yes, again! - for crying out loud. It feels too nice for him to actually complain though, and the cousins who’ve gone wide eyed are now leaning over to poke at Lalli’s pale hair. Emil slaps away their fingers.

“He doesn’t like it, stop. And isn’t it your bedtime?”

It is, almost, their bedtime but their parents are now snoring softly - not so softly, Torbjörn, yikes - and they’re all warm and sleepy from playing with each others hair and Emil’s surrounded by warmth and family and he can give them a few more minutes.

“Twenty minutes,” he says, stern, and makes them turn their attentions to each others hair while he relaxes into the soft shift of fabric in his ear and the rise and fall of Lalli’s breathing as he leans back a little - it really is warm in here.

After the twenty minutes are up he throws cushions at his aunt and uncle until Bosse flees, and Siv and Torbjörn wake and take their children to bed - well, Torbjörn does, Siv wakes enough to groan and say “You do it” and drag herself from the sofa to the stairs.

Five more minutes. Five more minutes and Emil will go to bed.

He’s interrupted by movement, as Lalli slides off the back of the sofa and makes his way to drop down crosslegged in front of Emil and tip his head back. Emil looks down. Lalli tilts his head up and back, looking at Emil upside down. “Hair?” he says, in thick-accented Swedish.

Emil blinks. “Okay,” he says, and combs his fingers through it, dragging them backward from Lalli’s hairline and down towards his ears. It’s dried all fluffy, since this afternoon’s regular shower drama. Lalli closes his eyes and leans back into Emil’s knees.

It’s not like Emil hasn't touched Lalli’s hair before. He’s manhandled him a lot since they’ve known each other, more often than Emil would like, actually, because most of those times Lalli had been unconscious and Emil had been trying to wake him up, or needed to carry him, or drag him around.  

The first time he’d seen Lalli laid low by expending too much energy, he’d made a ham-fisted attempt to check his vital signs: run his fingers over his pulse, felt for the hot fog of his breath, watched to see if his chest rose and fell, and finally shoved his hand up in his hair to tilt his face and wake him. Tuuri had been there to reassure him and he’d gone with it. She hadn’t seemed worried, and as it turned out, hadn’t needed to be.

Emil’s fingers keep carding away. Lalli’s hair is fine and lank and soft, and his features are sharp like a sprite from an old folk tale. Lots about Lalli is like an old folk tale, though it’d have to be a Finnish one, really, and from what Emil knows of those - and it’s minuscule - they're pretty creepy. More creepy, to think that they're most likely true in some form or another, and he suppresses a shudder.

He’s taken his attention away for a few moments, and Lalli decides it’s time to go, standing up and offering Emil a hand up from the sofa. Emil takes it, lets Lalli pull him to his feet, and they go upstairs - Emil to his room, Lalli out the window to do whatever it is he does when he vanishes and leaves Emil in the dark, concerned and alone.

“See you,” says Emil, and goes to bed.

===

_That night, Emil dreams. He’s in a forest that he doesn’t recognise, by a river he doesn’t know._

_He’s alone._

_The air itself feels sludgy brown, the colour of coffin dirt, of the bottom of a pond, lending a muted, rotten texture to the landscape. The whole place is liquid with despair and Emil feels like a sponge._

_He sees movement out of the corner of his eye, up in the trees, but when he turns there’s nothing there._

_“Hello?” he asks._

_Nothing responds._

_After a while, he shrugs and turns to go, and when he wakes he has no memory of leaving, no memory of the forest at all._

 

**CHAPTER 4**

A couple of months pass, and Emil and Lalli fall into a routine. Emil doesn’t have any more odd dreams, but he chats with Lalli in their sleep sometimes. Lalli is still disappearing off at night.

They’re not settled exactly, but they’re getting into comfortable habits amidst their discomfort and Emil can kid himself it’s the same.

Some days are more interesting than others.

It’s a late spring morning and it’s going to be a warm one. The advanced season is poking its green leaves and new shoots into the back of summer as if hurrying it along, morning mist on the fields burning off as they patrol the cleansed ground, new grass shoots poking up through the ash and the crunch of charcoal underfoot. They head out with another squad who’ve got two new recruits among their company, barely fifteen, twin blond brothers Max and Anton, who can’t stop talking about the trees and the trolls and the girls they’re going to impress with their uniforms.

That’s a thought, actually. Emil always meant to meet some girls now he’s back in the army and a almost a war hero to boot. Huh. He’d not even considered it.

Well. They’ve been busy. There’s plenty of time.

Either way, it’s nearly time for the start of the next stage of the cycle and Emil’s itching in anticipation. For now, they’re clearing out the last of the exposed areas near the edges of the forest. They’re at it all day, the two squads eventually splitting up to cover more ground. It’s getting more and more uncomfortable in the dirt and the heat, the early mud of spring is baked and dry now, grey and black dust kicking up around them as they patrol.

The cat squads take lots of rest breaks as they need to nap, cats being cats no matter their training and competence. Lalli’s often found curled up on rocks and under overhangs with two or three of them; their handlers get a break and Lalli gets a snooze. Emil gets to sit guard and watch, warm and sleepy just from looking until he feels the need to get up and trade a few jokes and be a people person.

Lalli joins them over lunch, arguing with Emil, Ingrid and the rest of the squad in broken Swedish over what’s better, his pukko or their Mora knives. There’s comparing of weights and balance and mild smack talk, and at some point Emil closes his eyes while a couple of the others stand guard.

He wonders what Tuuri would think of her cousin now, and smiles.  

===

He’s roused from the pleasant doze by yelling and crashing as a scout from one of the other teams hoofs it up to them, coming to a stop, her chest heaving, hands on knees, gesturing frantically. Captain Oscar levers himself up from the ground and gets her to breathe; the squad crowd around. The soldier - young, tall, probably the fastest runner, hair peeling out of her braid in sticky wisps - pants out the message.

“Oh god, you’ve got to come, one of the cats got a sniff of something and went into the forest and then young Anton went after it, he didn’t know any better, and they must have disturbed something because there was screaming and then Max went after them…”

She trails off, looking into Oscar’s eyes. There’s not a lot of comfort there. There’s not much they can do. They’ll come back, or they won’t come back. Cats pretty much do what they want, but they’re small and fast and generally pretty risk averse. People are another thing. Even a trained squad doesn’t want to go wandering around in the forest.

Max and Anton are on their own.

That doesn’t mean they don’t get as close to the scene as they possibly can. Because even when you can’t do a thing, you can’t do nothing.

They’re not far off from the other squad, maybe half a kilometre, if that. Emil and Lalli and the rest join them, double time, then dash over to the forest edge, standing in the sun and peering into the trees. The dust settles around them as they listen and stare. The edge of the forest is brightly lit enough but it darkens quickly as the trees thicken away from the cleansed zone.  

Lalli’s eyes are narrowed - Emil doesn’t know how much he understands of what’s going on but whatever senses he uses to notice this sort of thing are obviously jangling a carillon; he’s hissing quietly under his breath and so are the cats.

They hear crashing and there’s a scream from further in the forest. The cats start yowling, too well trained to run after it, but clearly in distress. It’s disturbing and heart rending and _distracting_ , because Emil’s not got time to react at all before Lalli has unsheathed his knife, dashing into the forest and disappearing.

“Holy shit,” hisses Emil.

“Hotakainen!” yells the Captain, who’s also possible a little psychic for a Swede, since he turns to Emil with wide eyes and says, “Don’t you bloody dare.”

Emil feels his mouth turn up in a horrible apologetic smile. “Sorry, sorry! I’m sorry!” he says, hands up in front of him as if to placate or forestall further argument (further _orders_ , part of him reminds himself, and oh hell) before legging it after Lalli, the sound of the squads curses in his ears, the soft give of the forest litter below the soles of his boots, perfect running surface as long as he doesn’t catch his toes in a root.

The screaming ahead intensifies and his chest is burning from the effort of catching up to Lalli, which is clearly never going to happen, but he’s gained back the muscle he lost from four weeks of inactivity on the boat and he makes it at a sprint through the dappled forest until it’s nearly up ahead, just out out of sight: the screams, the scuffling and the stench of troll, of something wrong, the nauseating belly button smell of sweet decay.   

He hauls his flamethrower into his hands, fingers close to the trigger. The forest is probably still too newly green and damp to really go up if he has to use it, but he’d rather not.

Lalli argued for and got to keep his rifle, but he’s also equipped with flares and his pukko knife. Emil’s got flares, accelerant and his ‘thrower, and his own knife. What he wishes he has is Sigrun or, failing that, another chance at doing today over again. Because this is not going to end well.

Emil edges forward.

The canopy in the forest is still new and green but dense enough to block the sunlight, dappling the ground and the rocks and the underbrush with patchwork greens and greys, the occasional sunbeam breaking through. Emil’s got a view now, between the trees.

Anton and Max have found a troll and it’s Not Good.   

The body of the unfortunate cat is lying at the bottom of a birch tree, broken in a bloody heap and Emil gags, acid hot and bitter in his mouth. He’s not got time to hurl, though.

Lalli is crouched at the base of a tree to Emil’s right. Max is on the floor in front of them, one monstrous claw puncturing his arm and pinning him to the ground, Max’s other arm beating frantically at the giant limb holding him down.

As Emil takes stock, Max starts to seize and spasm against the ground in shock or fear or trauma - Emil’s not a medic - Anton crouching beside him, tugging on the claw to absolutely no effect.

Of course, this means Anton’s also not concentrating on the threat and a flailing limb knocks him flying across the clearing, landing dazed on his back in the dirt. Emil takes all this in in the scant seconds it takes to unfold and he refocuses on the troll.

It’s a big one, a really big one and sneaky, to have lured an experienced cat out of the sunshine.

He looks up. And up.

Four heads. Not a troll, then. Okay.

The giant is… not as giant as it could be, but still bigger than your average troll, rough pebbled hide on its back, four heads stretching on long mobile necks, skin rucked up in glistening folds around the shoulders.  Emil’s brain, catching details, notices a black spiked nose ring in one festering and distorted nostril. He remembers the voices, wondering what Lalli’s blocking out, whether it’s hissing ‘food, food', or begging for help and relief. He switches those thoughts off. It doesn’t change anything he’s going to do right now.

If only he knew what that is.

He can’t unload a stream of fire in its faces without hurting the boys on the ground.  And he’s not killing that thing with his six inch knife. Anton’s scrambled to his feet, ducking away from the giant and Emil’s still frozen.

Lalli, always faster, scoots up a tree, shimmies out on a limb above the troll, locks his knees either side of the branch, slings his rifle off his back and sights down the barrel.  Two shots, and one of the heads bursts like the pumpkin squash Emil practiced on back during his basic training.

The giant screams and its heads flail almost comically, its attention torn between the now limp recruit on the ground and the threat from the tree.  

Splitting its attention between heads doesn’t seem to work well. It also doesn’t appear that coordinated and Emil’s being ignored for now so he darts in. He still daren’t use fire, with the twins on the ground, so he reverses his grip, tightens his fingers around the barrel of his flamethower and brings the butt down on the head menacing Max, who’s prone and unmoving.

Emil’s impact apparently makes little difference but gets the giant’s attention and Emil squeaks and swings again, and this time the soft facial bones and tissue crush and splinter under the blow and the other heads scream, body tensing and rearing up.  

The reaction pulls the dripping claw clear of Max’s arm, and Emil yells at Anton to get him out the way, not checking to see if he manages it - god he hopes they have - he’s got more immediate problems.

Between him and Lalli, they’ve got this monster down to two heads but there’s still a lot of angry, flailing horror left and it’s trying to kill them. Two sets of horribly human-looking eyes zero in on Emil, who adjusts his grip on his flamethrower so he’s holding it the conventional way around and stands his ground.

Lalli drops from the tree and clings to one of the giant’s necks, knife in one hand, trying to grip the slimy, slick rolls of hide, and hacks and hacks at the throat. He fails to keep hold, sliding down to the body and has to roll off and away to avoid a horrifying mobile tail, fearsome hook at the end stabbing down towards him.  

That, thinks Emil, he can do something about so he lets loose a concentrated jet of flame and the hook and the end of the tail, which is attached to some sort of bulbous sac, blackens and bubbles. It’s gross. There’s also one hell of a smell.

The troll rears again, distracted further between the pain in its two severed necks, the tail and the tasty morsels currently tormenting it.  

Two heads are flopping limply. A third is whipping around. It backs off, still snapping with mouths containing way too many teeth and jabbing with what remains of its tail.

“Lalli!” Emil yells, but Lalli is already at his side, panting.

Emil takes stock. The troll is moving in towards them, despite its pain.

It’s trying to draw them further into the forest, thinks Emil. It’s between him and the way they came in.

Hold that thought.

They’re already too deep in the forest and it’s too dark. The sun has gone behind a cloud and the canopy is shading them; the gloom is suddenly palpable. They’re being backed up against a tree.

Emil’s attention is caught by a soft sound.

Lalli has his eyes closed, hands open and he’s muttering in Finnish, a rhythmic cadence to the words, soothing, building, hustling, shifting, stirring. Emil realises it’s not just the words, that the wind is gusting in time with the chant until something breaks, Lalli’s face screwed up and then there’s a ‘pop’ in the air and sense of release.

The wind sweeps through the forest, eddying and dragging trees apart, breaking up the canopy and letting the sun shine through.

The troll shrieks.

Emil brain tries to parse what happens next.

Emil’s grandmother Mia once gave him a box of salt and instructed him to gather up every slug menacing her cabbages and dust them all in the devastating white powder. “This is how we deal with slugs,” she’d said - cabbage trolls, she called them - so she’d lined them up on the ground and Emil had sprinkled the salt on the little creatures, feeling sick to his stomach as he watched them writhe and shrivel.

This is like that, minus the guilt.

The troll screams and closes its eyes, rears and flinches away.

Emil’s not going to get a better chance than this; screw the trees, he pulls his flamethrower and aims a jet of fire straight at one head, while the other lunges towards him in desperation, mouth wide.

Lalli steps back, shoulders his rifle - not really designed for this kind of thing, but still - Lalli’s bullet bursts the brains of the final head feet from Emil’s face and the spray of brain matter and gore spatters his skin, his hair. He wants to vomit, he probably will later, but priorities.

“Run! Before we wake anything else!” he screams, and they both pelt away towards where they last saw the unfortunate recruits.

They’re still there, Max on the ground and Anton trying to drag him along by his underarms. Emil takes Anton by the shoulders and tugs him away. He’s shaking, tears leaving pale damp tracks through his soot blackened face. Lalli leans down to rest his fingers against Max’s pulse.

“He’s alive. Move.” he tells Emil.

Emil takes Anton by the shoulders and squeezes a little. “Hey. Hear that? We’ve got to get him out of here. Okay?” Anton’s a quivering mess, but Emil shakes him a bit and he seems to come back to himself. He follows Emil, and between them they get Max’s arms over their shoulders and haul him up between them so they can make their way back as fast as they can. Lalli follows, giving them wary over the shoulder looks and darting to scout ahead, circling around them.

It not that far, in the end.

Emil and Lalli arrive to see the rest of the squad watching in disbelief from the edge of the forest.  They share a guilty look, across Anton’s shoulder and Max’s slumped head. Ingrid and Oscar dash up to take hold of Max and Ingrid starts to apply bandages to his arm which is still bleeding freely. Anton, released, retches on the ground.

Lalli has the body of the cat bundled up in his coat, and as Max and Anton are crowded by the rest of the guard squad he kneels next to the remaining cats and lays their tiny comrade gently on the blackened ground, and stays with them as they wail.  He gathers the smallest one up in his arms and shoves his face into its fur. Emil watches.

They’ll be hissing at each other tomorrow no doubt.  

Emil takes a breath, looks around and down at himself. Lalli is miraculously free of troll guts. Emil is drenched in viscera and the brains of that last head, and he wishes, he really really wishes, that the sticky feeling in his hair was less familiar.

===

Ingrid eventually seems to think Max is stable so Oscar stands, Captain Mode Fully Engaged.

“Stand still! Stay fucking silent! _Djavel_ , am I working with children?!” he yells.

Emil can’t bring himself to care. Two kids are alive now and they sure as hell wouldn’t be without Lalli’s stupid impulses and Emil’s apparently pathological need to follow him anywhere, at a run if necessary.

And it had been necessary. No one else died today - the loss of the cat is cutting him up, but the cats don’t sit around talking about their favourite radio shows or their grandmother in Old Mora or the cute girls in their grocery counter that they’re totally going to ask out, sometime, you’ll see, oh they all love the uniform.  

No, Emil’s not sorry at all.

"I should toss you out on your thick heads!” yells Oscar.

Then Emil panics.

“But I won’t,” he says, and Emil’s shoulders relax with his huff of breath, “Although we are going to have a conversation about orders, and what they mean, and what it means when I give them, to you, specifically, Västerström.”

Emil nods. “Yessir.”

Oscar looks exasperated but resigned. It’s a look Emil’s seen on Mikkel’s face and what with that and the bodily fluids drying in his hair Emil almost feels at home.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, kids. We’re done for the day. God, it’s as bad as working with fucking Norwegians. Hooligans, the lot of them.”

Emil snorts, thinking about Sigrun and hoping she’s happy, and as bloody and bruised as he is right now.

Anton is describing the giant to the squad in hyperbolic detail, but he gets the number of heads right at least. Their captain keeps shooting them glances, looking him up and down and Emil thinks that yeah, this is probably not the way he’d have dealt with this twelve months ago. His reputation had preceded him from Ostersund. It was probably that he was a bit of a brat. This is… not that.

They pack up and go home, Lalli carrying the body of the cat, trailed in a kind of honour guard by the other felines. Max is slung on a makeshift stretcher and Anton is guided carefully by Ingrid, her arm over his shoulders.

===

They clean up at the barracks. Emil would say he’s never be so glad of a shower in his life, but this is honestly not the most gross he’s ever felt. It’s very much an immediate problem though, which is taking precedence as the grey and pink goo sloughs off and swirls around the drain and he scrubs and scrubs.  

Even Lalli has voluntarily ducked under a stream of water to give himself a perfunctory rinse and Emil tosses him the shampoo.  

“Want me to do your hair?” he asks, then realises this is an army barracks - he blushes.

“Never mind,” he says, quickly, covering.  

Lalli takes the bottle, squints as he squeezes the soap into his hand and rubs it into his hair. Emil pays attention to his own hair to keep his hands from reaching out to help - shock, he thinks. Trauma.

Those things.

He’d better sleep well tonight.

===

Torbjörn and Siv take one look at them, exchange looks, and ply them with bacon and noodles, banishing the children from the room to give the four of them space to talk in the kitchen. Emil’s weirdly reluctant to go into detail, but he gives them the bare bones - ha! if only! - and bolts his food as quickly as possible. He feels weirdly possessive of their afternoon, as if this is a him-and-Lalli thing and sharing it feels more dirty, somehow, than the memory of his blood-matted hair.

They don’t stay long before going upstairs, parting in the corridor with mutual shoulder pats, and going to their respective beds.

===

_When he ‘wakes’ Emil finds himself in a grove of blackened, brittle trees, the sound of a river somewhere beyond, out of sight. The shadows loom close and suffocating, the twiggy branches clutch at the folds of his clothes.  He gets the feeling he isn’t alone._

_“Anyone there?” he asks, hunching his shoulders and cowering. Just a little._

_There’s no answer. There’s no one there._

_He hears a rustle behind him and paces around in a circle._

_“Um?” he trembles._

_He feels a breath of air in his left ear and he makes to scream, but by the time his mouth opens he’s awake, heart hammering in his chest, and the sun’s shining in through the curtains._

 

**CHAPTER 5**

When the summer heats up and the burning part of the cleansing cycle starts in earnest, Emil really could not be happier. He has daily opportunities for lighting up the neighbourhood between the fences, keeping brush cleared and clearing out new areas beyond the walls.

This, he can admit now, always made him nervous before. Sure, he’d been equipped with a flamethrower but he’d never faced an actual troll. Now cleansing the land adjacent to Mora - surrounded by a team and with a bona fide troll detector and best friend in one slinky, skinny package standing next to him - he feels as safe as he does walking around their house in his nightclothes.

Not that he makes a habit of that.

He doesn’t feel invulnerable, but he doesn’t feel so brittle and afraid the way he used to.

And if he feels like the outsider still, as if he’s just a little too big or if Mora’s just a little too small, well, working with a team will burn through a lot of lonely even if it’s not _his_ team.  If occasionally there’s a nag of what, and why, and emptiness when he thinks about the whole of his life stretching out like this, then setting explosives and doing bit of pre-autumn demolition does wonders for existential angst. And if he worries Lalli’s going to get bored and one day go back to Onni, or to Finland where he can talk to the handful of people who live there and not be surrounded by crowds and… well, look, he’s got a flamethrower and those plants totally had it coming and there’s probably a troll behind there anyway.

He still watches Lalli, looking for signs of dissatisfaction - zoning out, distraction, wandering off, sighing, slumping, depressed episodes - and he’s at a loss really, since this is what Lalli is like all the time so he keeps looking and keeps worrying and memorising the different textures of Lalli’s sharp features and pale hair.

Just in case he ever needs to file a missing persons report.

===

They fell trees, wrapping the narrow detonator cord around the larger trunks at chest height, winding long strands of it around whole stands of birch and pine at once before paying out a good length to a safe distance and detonating it.  

Emil loves det-cord.

It’s basically explosives-infused string and is the safest way to fell a lot of trees at once, making straight, if ragged, cuts in their trunks, neat and safe and from a distance. It’s satisfying to see the trees all fall at the same time with horizontal puffs of sawdust and a protracted, wrenching crash that Emil feels down to his bones.

Det-cord is very, very effective but it looks entirely innocuous. A whole drum gets stolen one Wednesday evening and it’s eventually found by Army investigators in a quiet suburb of Outer Mora. They’d never have found it were it not for the Incident.

One of the support staff had taken the reel of cord, washing-line thin, and apparently useful for just that purpose. Which would have been fine, if illegal, until the support worker’s unfortunate husband lit up a pipe as they pegged their wet clothes to the line and their knickers and pants and sundries all went up in a crackle of flame and blew to high heaven. Both the woman and her husband were singed, though thankfully mostly unhurt, but they were SO BUSTED and of course they had to buy new underwear. Emil hears they jump now every time someone lights up.  

Cured their tobacco habit though.

Yes, Emil loves det-cord.

===

After haulage crews clear away the trees for fuel and for timber, the demolition squads get to the really fun bit: blowing up stumps - essential for farming and for maintaining Emil’s permanent summer time mood-high.

It needs maintaining. Part of him is happy enough, but a deeply suspicious part of him keeps looking to the tree line and the horizon and thinks of the abandoned towns and libraries, of still skeletal bodies hooked up to desiccated bags - a cure, maybe, even if it didn’t work this time - something they could use, a hope for the world. Still waiting, out there.

Eventually Emil remembers his promise to himself and decides he needs to introduce Lalli - and himself - to some girls. Emil doesn’t know any girls, except Ingrid and the other women in the squad and they don’t count. Emil doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but it’s not that.

There are other avenues. Emil and Lalli have acquired a fair reputation in Outer Mora, which isn’t that big. Anton, and later a fully-recovered Max, have been singing their praises all over town and everyone knows or knows of the young heroes of the Silent World and their daring rescue: short-but-courageous-and-handsome Emil Västerström and his odd-but-competent Finnish friend, Lalli Hotakainen. They’ve killed giants with their bare hands, you know. Well, with weapons. But they were very brave. And the giant is very dead. They saved the lives of those two boys. They even brought back the body of the cat. Nice young men. Respectful.

Sometimes, when they’re in town, they're given free pastries.

Emil’s not complaining but now he’s got it, fame isn’t the boost or the solution he had expected.

He also doesn’t really want to ask two fifteen year olds if they have any older cousins or if they know anyone willing to date either him or Lalli. He just can’t have that conversation.

Everyone has to meet someone somewhere, right? Emil thinks about it.

If it were winter, Emil would have taken them skating. He bets Lalli’s good at skating, given the Hotakainens grew up on a huge lake and all. He can imagine it, Mora in winter. All the skaters would have been all wrapped up, sweet bundles in their coats and mufflers, with pink cheeks and breath hanging in the air as they slid and swished, hair peeking out under the edges of their knitted hats.  Emil feels his cheeks pink up. He likes all pretty things. And skating. It’s always fun, and you can pretend to be more clumsy than you are, stumbling into people, giving yourself an excuse to introduce yourself even if your first interaction is an apology.

From experience, Emil thinks it’s as well to get those in early.

But it’s summer now, so the only thing he can think of is bowls. Lawn bowls.

It’s not really the same. It’s Saturday morning and they’ve got the whole day so they wander the streets and end up in the park. The trees are in full leaf, spaced out along wide gravel avenues. There are flower beds and wide, grassy spaces. People have turned out with picnic blankets to enjoy the sunshine and people-watch.

Emil’s not really one for the game, so he and Lalli sit on a bench and watch various groups roll heavy balls around on the green in the park. The participants are old, young, all genders, families and friends. There are a few groups of giggling women and girls, and Emil lets himself look, occasionally flashing his best smile. They get a few glances of recognition and a few waves. Emil waves back.

They’ve brought snacks, Lalli sneaking them out of Emil’s pocket and Emil pretending not to notice until he decides he wants some too, and then he pulls out the bag and shares them out in the open. Lalli looks nonplussed but not bored, legs tucked up on the bench while Emil sprawls next to him.

“Which one do you like?” asks Emil, for the sake of things really. Lalli isn’t following this conversation but he seems happy enough to be there.

“That one has nice hair,” says Emil. Lalli follows his line of sight, looks blankly at Emil and snaffles another snack.

Eventually, two girls - women, he supposes - apparently in their early twenties approach them at their bench and introduce themselves. Alice is dark with short feathered hair, wearing a blue sun-dress and closed-toe shoes. Lilly is taller and freckled, waves of pale red hair brushing her shoulders, in cropped trousers and a second-hand army jacket. They shake hands and Emil gives their own introductions.

“I’m Emil, Cleanser. This is Lalli, he’s from Finland though, so he probably won’t understand half the words you say. Hey,” Emil elbows him, “say hi.”

Lalli waggles his fingers.

“Oh, you’re cute!” Alice bubbles, and Lilly giggles behind her hand. Really? Emil feels hopeful.

“It’s so good to meet you,” Lilly tells them, “We’ve heard all about you. You’re famous! We just wanted to let you know you’re kinda an inspiration? We’re glad you feel able to, you know…” she wafts a hand in their direction “…despite the language barrier. It’s so cool to meet you! My brother will be so jealous. We hope you have a nice afternoon and we’re happy you’re staying in Mora.” Alice is nodding along, her arm tucked through Lilly’s.

Then they smile, and wave and walk off without another word.

“ _Vad i helvete?_ What just happened?” asks Emil. Lalli looks blank but reacts to Emil’s confusion and pats him gently. “Are they shy? They didn’t seem shy. She said I was cute and then they walked off! Oh, hey, maybe they meant you.” That’s plausible, thinks Emil, though it doesn’t explain why they just left.  

Emil subjects Lalli to an intense all over gaze, and Lalli narrows his eyes.

“I mean they could have meant you,” he grumbles, feeling something sharp behind his ribcage and massages his chest. Too many snacks. It’s probably heartburn.

Emil spends the next few minutes sneaking glances in Lalli’s direction and trying to work out which of them is prettier. He’s aware this makes him vain but he’s worked hard for this body and nature’s gifted him with great hair and a handsome face and yeah sure, he’s a little short, but really. Pretty guy over here. Lalli though. Lalli’s…

Okay, so Emil’s always thought Lalli was, aesthetically speaking, nice. As someone who worries what people think of him all the time, Emil can appreciate Lalli, who just does not give a shit about any of that. Most of the time. At least not about his looks. Lalli is every skinny inch just himself.

Emil sneaks another look.

Cute nose. Cute hair.  He could cut det-cord on those cheekbones.

Emil looks away.

And looks back.

Lalli hasn’t moved and his eyes are closed.

Emil turns away again, turns back and _does very much not_ squeal because Lalli’s face is _right there._ In _his_ face.

“What?” hisses Lalli, in Finnish, hot breath on Emil’s face.

“S.. s.. sorry?” Emil knows his guilty smile’s probably a little foolish right now.

Lalli narrows his eyes. Emil sighs.

"Come on then, let’s go home. Girls are stupid anyway.”

===

This is how it all falls apart.

They’re walking home through the park. The sun is warm on the back of Emil’s neck and he’s sulking. All he wants to do is meet girls and set up his best friend so they can both settle down and Emil will finally be happy to be in Sweden forever. Is that so hard?

He’s roused to attention by Lalli’s indrawn hiss of breath. There’s another girl ahead of them, petite, rounded, short hair cropped to a close fuzz. From the back, the resemblance is evident.

Lalli dashes ahead, screeches to a halt in the gravel and grabs the girl by both shoulders. She gasps. Emil can’t see her face, but he can see Lalli’s and the expressions that contort it: longing, shock, disappointment, horror, anger, loss, despair. He seems to come back to himself for a second, drops his hands from the girl’s shoulders, fists clenched. Emil can see the tears springing in his eyes from here. He sees Lalli say something, “sorry” probably, and his eyes flick up to meet Emil’s.

No, thinks Emil.

A hole is opening up beneath his chest, he can feel the tug of its depths, the edge crumbling, his heart fluttering.

It’s too late though.

Lalli breaks eye contact, turns and runs. It’s almost supernatural, inhuman, how fast he can move when he wants to. It’s beautiful to watch, even as Emil’s heart feels like it’s breaking. He’s gone in a moment, dodging the lazy weekend patrons of the park and flying through a stand of beech trees.

The girl, whose face looks nothing like Tuuri’s, turns to Emil, her brown eyes wide and startled, and then hurries off as fast as seems polite.

 _“Fan i helvetes djävla kuk!”_ swears Emil, clenching his fists, left alone in the middle of the park and then has to profusely, profoundly apologise to the shocked mother and daughter passing him on the path.

“What do those words mean, mama?” asks the little girl, and the mother glares.

Oh god, if she’s recognised him that’s going to get back to the Army and he’s going to catch it later. He doesn’t have time to worry about that right now. Emil doesn’t stay to apologise further. He runs. He’s not got a hope but he runs, and he looks, and he checks behind every damn tree in the park, but he knows it’s hopeless.

It’s lunchtime and he’s not hungry at all, but he’s also not stupid and knows Lalli won’t be found if he doesn’t want to be. He’s spent half the nights in the week for the last few months exploring, or at least so Emil presumes, so by now he probably knows Mora better than Emil does. And he’s much, much faster. So he has to go home now, because probably sooner or later Lalli will make his way back.

Yeah. He should just go home. Lalli will come home.

He’s aching inside. And he’s afraid.

===

By two o’clock, Emil is back at the house doing laundry with Siv and folding the children’s clothes.

“He’s fine, Emil,” she tells him, “He’s a professional scout, he can find his way home. Oh I do hope he stays inside the walls. Except, oh… well. Maybe he won’t want to? No, I’m sure it will be fine.”

Torbjörn laughs nervously and tells them everything will be okay.

===

At three thirty, Emil is listening to Torbjörn complain about his latest job. Well, sort of listening. Half listening.

Okay, not listening.

Torbjörn notices Emil’s distraction. “He’ll be back when he’s back, Emil. He probably wants to be alone for a bit, you’ve been spending a lot of time together you know,” and thanks, Uncle, way to make Emil feel even more shitty.

===

At six, Emil picks at his cabbage and gammon steak and sighs. Then he eats his dinner, because, still, after all this time, _proper food_.

===

Emil puts the children to bed.

“Story, story, story!”

“I want the cat book!”

“Show ME the pictures, Cousin Emil!”

Emil reads them the Pettson and Findus stories, which are ancient family heirlooms, until his throat gets scratchy and his chest aches.

“It’s going to be okay,” Sune tells him “We want him back too.”

===

At nine thirty Siv and Torbjörn pass the door to the living room and stick their head in.

“We’re going up,” Torbjörn tells him, "Make sure Bosse’s inside before you turn in.”

Emil stands at the front door and Bosse winds his way through Emil’s legs and demands food. Emil leans down strokes his back absently. He stands in the doorway for a long time before he goes upstairs, not looking at Lalli’s door, and climbs into bed.

===

_Lalli isn’t there when he sleeps. He dreams of the dark forest instead, and though he can hear rustling in the dead leaves still clinging to the trees, he wakes without seeing anything else._

===

The next day is a Sunday. Emil checks Lalli’s room. He’s not been back, but his rifle is missing from the closet downstairs and his coat is gone.

So is Torbjörn’s not-so-secret stash of cookies from the bottom drawer of the linen cabinet.

That night, Emil tries not to expect anything.

===

_When he opens his eyes he’s apparently still in his bedroom but the world he’s perceiving is monochrome tinged with a hint of dull red. The whole dream has his throat closing up with its malevolence. Even the cats on the quilt look sinister._

_Lalli’s cross legged at the foot of his ghostly dream-bed, just out of reach, dressed in his phantom Finnish clothes, cape drawn tight around his shoulders. Emil sits up, leaning back on his hands and just stares._

_“It’s stupid. I know she’s dead,” says Lalli, with no preamble._

_Emil’s fingers reach out without his consent, wanting to - he doesn’t know, touch or console or something - but he clutches them together in time and drops his hand to the sheets._

_“It’s… it’s not stupid.” He spends his waking hours wishing he could talk with Lalli and now he can and what the devil can he say? “It’s okay to miss her. Just come home, come back, we’ll work it out. We’ll… get grief counselling or something.”_

_“I don’t need that. And I can’t come back. I failed.”_

_“How did you fail? Tuuri? Your family? Me? Talk to me, Lalli, how can I help if I don’t know how to fix this!”_

_“You can’t fix this! Are you an idiot?”_

_“Lalli!"_

_“Just shut up. I don’t know why I even bother! You’re just as weird and stupid as everyone else!”_

_Emil’s backed up against the head of the bed as far as he can go, heart hammering like he’s being attacked, like they’re back to hiding in a bathroom or in a barrel, convinced they’re going to die._

_Lalli’s face is contorted into a snarl and when he thrusts his palms out in front of him, Emil’s only got time to gasp out “Lalli, wait Lalli no!” before he’s physically repulsed, the world goes white and he wakes clutching his chest, heart pounding, drenched in sweat and it’s really no business of anyone’s if, when he squeezes his eyes shut, his cheeks end up wet with tears._

_===_

The next day is a Monday. Emil is exhausted. His morning is spent making excuses for Lalli and justifying - or rather apologising for - his language in the park on Saturday, which has got back to his superiors. He was going to cover, say Lalli had a cold or something, but he sees Oscar and Ingrid in the changing rooms and it all comes spilling out.

They’re kind. They’re both so very kind.

Oscar tells him he’ll deal with the paperwork. Ingrid’s placid demeanour turns out to be just what Emil needs in a crisis and for this she _will_ sling an arm round his shoulders, to hold him close while he shakes, eyes dry, just for a moment, just until he can get it together. She rests her chin on his head and whispers calming words until he’s ready to go on.

They send him home anyway and tell him to take the week.

When he goes to bed, Emil sits up as long as he can, avoiding sleep, pinching himself when he feels himself nod off until his body takes over and he slips out anyway.

===

_He’s back in the dark forest, everything around him a washed out brown.  He’s by a river, and he’s dressed in his old expedition gear. Emil automatically fingers the flares in his bandolier, reaches for his knife._

_“Uh, hello?” he says, to no one. The only living thing here is perched in the bare branches of a winter tree, hopping sidelong towards him at about eye height._

_This is new._

_“Hey Emil,” says the bird and it’s - marvels never cease - it’s Tuuri’s voice, Turri’s little tuft of hair but feathers. Emil stands and stares._

_The little bird shuffles a bit. “It’s me. Tuuri.” She looks uncertain. Emil steps closer. He’s pretty sure he can’t just have a heart attack and keel over in his sleep, but if he could he feels like he would be._

_“Tuuri. Really?”_

_“Well, sort of,” says the bird. She and Emil are face to face now._

_She’s small enough to cup in his hand, so he does and she flutters into his palms, settling ruffled translucent feathers._

_“I didn’t know you could do this,” he says, stunned._

_“Oh, I can’t,” she twitters, “This isn’t real. You’re just dreaming. The dead can’t cross the river. And the living shouldn’t, it’s really not encouraged.” She preens an errant feather with her beak. Emil’s still blinking._

_“So this isn’t magic?”_

_“I’m just a dream, how would I know, ahahahaha. Ha.” All birds look shifty, but this is Tuuri in guilty mode, sitting in his palms. He jostles her, because it’s so familiar and because he can.  He holds her up to his face, eye to eye._

_“Why are you here?”_

_“I’m not, remember?”_

_“Okaaaay. Why am I here?”_

_“You tell me,” she chirps._

_Emil deflates, placing her carefully back on the branch, letting her hop from his palms. He drops his hands to his sides, looks away, clutches his hands in fists._

_“Lalli ran away,” he blurts. Tuuri flutters around to another branch so she can face him, cocks her head, one beady eye looking him in the eye. “He saw someone who looked like you and I think he freaked out. I don’t know if he’s coming back, but he doesn’t speak the language well, he doesn’t have anywhere to go. I don’t know what to do.”_

_Tuuri sighs. “Oh Emil,” she says._

_“What do I do?” he asks. He’s aware he’s talking to a little bird with the voice of his dead friend and yes, probably, this is all a figment of his imagination, but he’s so alone. And he’ll take it. He misses Tuuri too._

_“I’m not exactly the best person to ask,” says the bird “I think I did the best I could but I think, maybe, um, I didn’t understand Lalli? Honestly? Maybe? The closest thing to understanding I’ve seen between Lalli and anyone is you. If he’s got it in him to go on, he’ll come back to you.”_

_She appears to think for a bit. “Or, well, or else I’ll see him here soon enough.”_

_“Tuuri!” he yells, and it’s a hell of a realistic fantasy because that was EXACTLY THE WRONG THING TO SAY which is just so her. The realisation makes him smile despite himself - despite_ her _\-  and he says, “I missed you.”_

_“I miss you all too. Lalli will come back, Emil. And when he does, you look after him, okay? And yourself.”_

_“You have to go?”_

_“No, you do. I was never here,” she promises._

_Emil wakes in his bed with the sun on his face shining in through the crack in the curtain, and this time he remembers the forest, the bird and his friend._

===

Emil goes back to work the following week.

Everyone’s very nice.

Emil isn’t. Emil snaps at his colleagues and sets fires in the wrong places. People seem to understand. Max and Anton cover for him a lot, do the little things like clean his boots and make sure he remembers his lunch.

The week after that, they’re still doing it. When Emil calls them out he gets hushed and handwaved. “It’s okay, Emil,” Anton tells him, “We can’t imagine. So we’re just going to help out, okay? Till… till he comes back. Alright?”

Emil doesn’t have a thing to say to that.

It’s deep summer now. Emil applies himself to setting fires, burning brush and losing himself in the choking smoke, crackling brush, almost constant heat. He comes home smudged with charcoal, skin sparkling with carbon fragments.

He can’t bear to shower in the barracks.

Emil’s mood is bad and snappy, and Siv yells at him over the dinner table to “For god’s sake pull yourself together.” The children all cry and Emil takes his food upstairs to finish away from all their disappointed faces.

He stares at his own face in the bathroom mirror as he washes up and shaves; rubs his hair between his fingers, sluices the soap and grime from his body and tries not to think about Lalli. Where he is, what he’s doing, what he’s finding to eat, if he’s remembering to eat. It’s been too long, now, for him to expect Lalli to wander back home a little tired and hungry, and Emil wonders if it’s always going to be like this, just not knowing whether he’s alive or dead.

Darn it, he was not going to think about it.

He wonders if they can get word to Onni, who could find him in that place they go when they’re asleep, only they don’t want to contact Onni till they have to. And they don’t have to, not yet. It’s not been long enough. It’s only been three weeks.

Emil takes one last look at his face in the mirror, makes himself meet his own eyes and scrubs his hand through his hair before he leaves to get ready for bed.

Emil doesn’t dream any more and sleep isn’t all that restful.

 

**CHAPTER 6**

Four weeks in, and you bet Emil’s still counting, Torbjörn and Siv ask him for a favour.

Torbjörn seems a little brighter than he has for some time. Even Siv seems a little less fatalistic. They’re going on a trip, they’ll be away for a couple of days. They’ll head off on Friday, will be back early evening on Sunday. Could Emil stay and watch the children? They’ve set up a play date and sleepover for them for the Saturday, so he’ll have some time to himself. Please? None of the babysitters in this town will give them the time of day.

Also could he please clean the kitchen and the floors? And change the sheets in all the bedrooms. It needs doing.

Emil doesn’t see why not. He doesn’t have anything better to do.

===

After Friday evening and all of Saturday Siv and Torbjörn have been gone for a night and a day. Emil’s delivered the children to their friends house for their sleepover.  He likes Anna, Hakan and Sune but sole responsibility for three high maintenance children is not something he wants to do for longer than he has to. Also it’ll give him a chance to do the chores tomorrow. They’ve packed little bags and gone off to torture their friends parents for a change, so Emil has an evening to himself for the first time since he can’t remember.

Even in quarantine, locked in a glass box, he could see the rest of his team. He falls asleep on the couch early, limbs splayed over the cushions, and wakes around nine with his mouth feeling like fuzz and tasting like snot.

He stumbles upstairs to bed, and it was a tactical error to be alone, he thinks, because there’s nothing now between himself and the ache in his chest, the loneliness and the loss. He thinks of lazy weekends and how now those two days off are just torture, and maybe next weekend he can swing some additional shifts on another cleansing squad or something, because he’s got nothing now and he just wants everything to burn.

He’s too tired to cry.

_===_

_He dreams he’s back in Tuuri’s forest, and lies back in the leaf litter looking up at the sky, which has a pale orange cast, like the light of a candle through the skin of a pumpkin lantern or his memories of the night-time glow of Reykjavik reflected from low clouds._

_He closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to be here either._

_There’s a brush of air against his face and he screws his eyes further shut; he can’t handle seeing Tuuri right now._

_He hears fluttering in the leaves beside his face, feels feathers soft against the shell of his ear and then there’s a sharp narrow beak poking into the cartilage and Tuuri’s soft, hoarse little voice raised  in urgency and peeping: “Emil, Emil! Wake up! Wake! Up!”_

_===_

He does wake.

The curtains are still open and it’s the wee small hours of the night; the memory of the sun is tinting the horizon a horrid putrid green and the moon is high in the sky. Cursing his life and his luck, pulling his pillow over his ears, he thrusts his face into the mattress so it’s a while before he registers that somethings’ scratching at the outer door downstairs.

He freezes. His blood is hissing in his ears and he’s sure he’s wrong. It must be Bosse, he must have got out somehow.

The scratching continues, more urgently.

He’s at the window in a tangle of sheets, pillows flying all over the room, tripping on the rag rug, his cheek slamming - splap! - against the glass. Ow, he thinks, fingers squeaking as he gains purchase on the window, and through one cracked and smooshed eyelid, he sees a pale, thin shape at the door and his heart seizes in his chest.  

He fumbles the catch a few times before he can get it open and leans out of the window to yell, letting a blast of cold air in and relieving his feelings by screaming into the night to get the key, the key, the KEY.

“Shut up!” screams a neighbour.  

“Sorry!” howls Emil, who isn’t, and shoves his feet into his slippers.

“Goddammit Lalli,” he mutters as he races downstairs to open the door, he’s in a nightshirt for crying out loud, poised for a rant because he is feeling _everything_ , only for Lalli to slink in and disappear upstairs without looking at Emil at all.

“Bastard,” croaks Emil, desperately relieved.

By the time he’s got himself a glass of water and decides to make up a tray of food for Lalli - bless all those Finnish deities - and stomps upstairs, Lalli’s nowhere to be found.

Emil takes a moment to be disappointed. He had more yelling to do. He’s got four weeks of pent up pain, hurt and rage and he’s - they’ve - got an empty house for him to vent it in.

Barging in there won’t do a lick of good, so he leaves the tray outside Lalli’s closed door and goes back to his own room.  He sighs, settles back into bed - maybe he’ll sleep knowing Lalli is safe and actually came home or maybe he’s going to spend the rest of the night fighting his current instinct, which is to do something like sleep curled against the door to Lalli’s room or worse, muscle his way in there and chain him to something suitably immovable.

Emil is exercising all of his self control.

He tells himself that whatever the current situation, it doesn’t necessarily mean everything’s okay, doesn’t mean he won’t wake and the little box room will be empty, the only sign it was ever occupied some crumbs on the plate outside the door. Even if not, he’s not pretending this means Lalli’s speaking to him - last time, out in the Silent World, it was weeks.

He’s braced for a long process of readjustment and careful treading on eggshells, adjusting his orbit, and he’s just so goddamn happy because if this is what he gets, he gets this and he’ll take it. Lalli is here.  

He’s just about gotten comfy and closed his eyes, lying propped against the three pillows he’s still grateful for every day, quilt heaped up on one side, when the door opens with a whisper.

It’s dark, so he can only see what’s shining in from the moon outside, but as soon as his eyes are open wide, he closes them, stops breathing. Cracks one eye and closes it again as he sees movement and hears soft footsteps padding across the floor towards the bed.

He keeps his eyes closed as the bed sinks a little on his left - springs making a _gloink_ of complaint - forces himself still as a bony knee pokes him in the side, doesn’t trust himself to look when a cold, newly pyjama’d heap forms in his lap.

Emil doesn’t breathe.

He’s semi recumbent anyway and this isn’t exactly comfortable, but he doesn’t want to spook the fragile presence currently in the process of curling up and fidgeting in front of him.

Eventually, the weight on his legs settles.

A sharp pain between his eyes makes him open up. Lalli’s eyes are inches from his own, finger extended. Lalli's breath is warm and damp on his face. “What?" he asks.

Lalli just nods, as if satisfied that his presence has been recognised. He looks tired. A little red and ragged around the edges.

Lalli draws his knees up to his chest, tucks his feet over on Emil’s left side, butts his head up under Emil’s chin and lets out a sigh before relaxing, floppy and warm against Emil’s chest.

Emil’s still part frozen.

“Okay…” he wheezes, looks about. He grabs the patchwork quilt and tugs it up around Lalli, lets himself ease back into the pillows - it’s not toooo uncomfortable, he supposes - and carefully brings his arms around Lalli’s back.

His lower lip is trembling and he’s glad it’s dark.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Lalli, in Swedish.

“It’s okay,” says Emil, still trembling, squeezing ever so gently.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” confirms Lalli, into Emil’s nightshirt.

“We don’t have to. I’m just glad you’re…”

… _‘Alive_ ’ he thinks, ‘ _with me_ ’ he thinks…

“…Safe,” says Emil.

Lalli doesn’t appear to have anything further to add.

Well, like hell Emil’s ever going to sleep _now_.

===

So much for that.

Emil wakes again and it’s early morning with the summer sun creeping in to paint bright patterns on the wall above his bed. His best friend is sprawled across his chest, loose grey pyjamas too big on his narrow frame. Lalli’s fine, pale hair - so like a ghost last night - is lying limp over his face.

So.

No sign of movement. He might as well look while he can.

Emil likes hair, his own particularly. He knows it looks good and makes sure of it. He likes to watch it sparkle, catching sight of it in shop windows. He always liked Tuuri’s fuzzy mop, Mikkel’s is okay but his sideburns are better, Sigrun’s always looks good, Reynir’s is a disgusting mess.  

Lalli’s is just kinda grey, like the rest of him, pale and not quite there, until he’s fighting or - still weird - spelling, or whatever he calls it. When Lalli looks alive, he really looks alive.

Right now he looks neither alive nor dead - and Emil’s pretty sure he’s heard an old joke about that but can’t remember the details so it can’t have been good or important - but it’s just normal sleep, and Emil’s seen enough of the other kind to be grateful for that too. So he’s got time to look, and maybe he can smooth down that sticky out bit there, sheesh Lalli, I know you’ve been living in the woods for a month but that’s no excuse to look like a hobo.

Well. Okay, maybe it is. And whoops, he’s waking up.

Lalli untangles himself and sits back on his heels, straddling Emil’s legs. He yawns so wide Emil thinks he’s unhinged his jaw, makes sure he’s caught Emil’s eye, tilts his head, squints a little as if considering something, then reaches out to rearrange _Emil’s_ hair. He pats Emil on the head before hopping off the bed and leaving the room, presumably to perform his morning ablutions in the privacy of his own room.

Or leave again forever. Who knows.

Okay then.

Emil’s muzzy and still limp with gratitude that Lalli is, most probably, _back_. He rolls out of bed, out the door, takes care of his own bathroom needs, and staggers back still in his nightgown to dive back under the warm, white sheets, and the quilt of patchwork cats. Too early. _Way_ too early. And it’s _Sunday_.

Emil’s pleasantly dozing by the time Lalli returns, closes the pale, painted door behind him, marches over to the bed and takes Emil by the arm.

“Um, okay?” he asks, not really sure what’s going on.

Lalli tugs on his wrist, as if to suggest he get out of bed. Emil’s not having any of that without good reason at this time in the morning.

“Sleep, Lalli, come on. Please,” he begs, resisting the pull on his arm.

The look on Lalli’s pretty, angular face is determined though - I-have-seen-a-troll-so-we-are-leaving determined - and Emil’s response to that is pavlovian at this point, so he goes.

He thinks the possibility of there being a troll in his bedroom is pretty low, but he’s been wrong before.

Emil gets dragged past the foot of the bed into the middle of the room and pushed to the floor. Taken by surprise, he falls on his butt - ow! - while Lalli rests the heel of his hand against Emil’s forehead and exerts a gentle but insistent pressure. Emil’s no idea what’s going on but he goes with it anyway, leaning back on his elbows, legs splayed in front of him, half on, half off the cheerful, peppermint candy-bright rug.

Lalli doesn’t let up the pressure on his head, and he’s frowning and mission-serious so Emil slides further, letting his shoulders rest on the floor, smoothing his palm over the grain of the floorboards with one hand and the plaited rags of the rug with the other.  Down here, below the sill of the window, the bright stripes of sunlight on the wall make their spot on the floor gloomy by comparison; Lalli’s grey eyes are almost colourless.

“Uh, Lalli?” Emil asks.

Lalli doesn’t respond but twists his mouth up on one side in a dissatisfied way and Emil watches in bewilderment as he bounds over to the bed and returns with a pillow, which he tucks behind Emil’s head so he doesn’t have to hold his neck up.

Thoughtful, thinks Emil, except he’s fuzzy on what’s going on and still has a head full of cotton wool from his interrupted night’s sleep.  

Lalli squats back until he’s straddling Emil’s lap again, wriggles so his knees rest either side of Emil’s hips, and leans forward to carefully rake his fingers through Emil’s hair, spreading it out on the pillow to his apparent satisfaction before brushing a final stray lock from Emil’s forehead almost as an afterthought. His eyes are a different kind of colourless now, wide and dark and fixed entirely on Emil’s face.

Emil’s spreadeagled on the floor, pillow cradling the back of his neck, and starting to wake up and wonder - what the fuck? Which is when Lalli slides his palms up under the collar of Emil’s nightshirt to rest on his shoulders, crouches down, and kisses him.

 

**CHAPTER 7**

Explosions are going off in Emil’s brain.

It’s loud. He can’t think.

Lalli’s so flexible he folds up like a stack of cards, so they’re basically chest to chest, Lalli’s knees gripping Emil’s sides, his hands cupping Emil’s face, gentle pressure, warm and perfect. And the kissing.

 _Wow, yes, kissing_ , thinks Emil.

Emil’s been kissed before, but never by someone he loves as much as he loves Lalli - oh, _right,_ he thinks, briefly - and never by someone who knows what they want, which appears to be ‘to drive Emil mad with want and lust’.

Mission accomplished.

“Oh Lalli, by all the gods you better know how to finish what you start,” pants Emil, between kisses.

Lalli pulls away, leaning on his hands, staring down. He cheeks are flushed, eyes bright, and in this moment he looks awake and alive and everything Emil realises he wants.

“Why are we on the floor you crazy Finnish weirdo?” Emil asks, his hands wandering up to grip Lalli’s waist.

“I like the floor,” says Lalli, in Swedish, as if that makes any sense in any language.

“I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t want to do this under the bed,” Emil gasps, then cups one hand round the back of Lalli’s neck and draws him in for more kissing, more touching, more everything.

===

Turns out Lalli’s entirely capable of finishing what he starts. Emil is only capable of increasingly frantic swearing, culminating in words to the effect of “bloody Finnish bastard” as his head thunks back into the pillow.

He doesn’t know what’s prompted this move on Lalli’s part, but his foremost thought as he reaches for Lalli to return the favour is “don’t let me fuck this up.”

As far as Emil can tell from Lalli’s incoherent keening, he doesn’t have any complaints.

===

The fires of Emil’s combusting brain eventually bank down to manageable embers, along with his resting heart rate.  He feels sticky and messy and his hair has got to be unbelievably disorganised, but Lalli is collapsed next to him on the pillow, one hand patting his head in a friendly way.

Emil just lies there dazed, feeling reassured, not totally sure why what just happened happened, but thank you, thank you, thank you gods-that-don’t-exist and all he can think of for a while is ‘how do I get this to happen again?’

He suspects that’s not going to be something he’s going to have a lot of control over.

Lalli himself looks unfocussed and happy for at least a few minutes until he starts to shift around and whine. Emil translates the whines to mean something like ‘gross, messy, sticky, ick' and Emil has a sudden, inspired, genius, clever idea and sits bolt upright, grabbing Lalli by the wrist and tugging him towards the door.

Lalli resists, but Emil’s had practice at this.

“No, no, see this’ll work - it’ll be clean, no uh, nasty mess, trust me. Come on.”  

Emil grabs towels from the hooks on the bedroom wall with his free hand, muscles Lalli down the corridor and drags him backwards into the bathroom. He strips off what few clothes they’d had left and pulls them under the shower head, praying that there’s hot water. Lalli wails in complaint at the shock of the water as it hits them so Emil distracts him with kisses while he rubs soap into Lalli’s hair. He’s wanted to do _this_ for _ages_.

Seriously. Emil could do this _all day._

Eventually, the hot water runs out. They end up spacey and giggly, staring into each others eyes and staggering back to bed to collapse on each other. Emil thinks he might have found a way to talk Lalli around to showers. Huh. Who knew?  

He checks the time, before he lets himself nap. The sun is up and it’s morning now but Emil’s body is limp from emotion and relief and post-coital lassitude, and he hasn’t slept well in a month so he gives in to the temptation to sleep, never mind that his hair is wet and the sheets will get damp and musty.  The worst that can happen is that someone walks in on them curled under the covers. He doesn’t think Siv and Torbjörn would make much of a big deal except, you know, kids live here. _I mean_ , he thinks, _they must have HAD children somehow,_ and Emil shuts that thought down right there, because nope nope nope.

Lalli is already out cold, doing his best impression of a liquid at room temperature, and Emil pillows his head on one arm, watching even as his eyes begin to droop closed, contemplating the boneless sprawl that is his best friend. Since Lalli’s insinuated himself sidelong into his life, Emil’s personal universe now includes things like friendship and obscene bravery and magic, which is like an entire new dimension or something and really, this - whatever it is they just clumsily started - is just another way Lalli will sneak in through whatever crack Emil leaves ajar to presumptuously rearrange his mind and his life. It is what it is. It’s not like he _minds_.

Emil’s last _utterly soppy_ thought before he temporarily slides out of the waking world is “I wonder what the universe will look like tomorrow.”

===

_The colours in the dreamscape are muted fuzzy purples, deep pinks and midnight blue.  This time the edges of his awareness are crowded with bubbles tinged with rainbow coronas, swirling, popping and reforming._

_Emil half expects woodland creatures to start hopping out of the shadows. It says something about Emil’s life that this would probably be the least weird moment of the last few hours._

_They’re indoors, on a reasonable facsimile of Emil’s bed. The kitties on the bedspread are purple and cheerful._

_Lalli is curled up in the lilac tinted sheets like a warm animal a few feet away, cheek smushed up against the rucked cloth, and as Emil watches he slowly slides an arm across the landscape of the bed to just press the heel of his hand to Emil’s shoulder._

_They’re dressed the way they were earlier in the day. Lalli gives another gentle stretch-shove against his sleeve and gives him a solemn almost-smile._

_Emil leans up on his elbow, tilts his head to look Lalli in the eye, and says “Let me guess, we’re not talking about this either?” He thinks he probably looks pretty smug right now, he’s feeling soft and fond and all the other thinks Lalli brings out in him when he’s not wanting to throttle him or terrified for him. It’s - miraculously - safe here. Their bodies aren’t in danger, no one’s dying._

_“I missed talking,” Lalli says._

_“I missed you,” says Emil, unguarded, and then could kick himself for a fool as Lalli turns his face away in pain._

_“No, no, no, forget I said that. I mean I’m happy you’re here, c’mon,” he babbles, until Lalli turns to look back, his frown turned exasperated.  He inchworms his way over, and Emil gathers him up. “I don’t care where you were, I don’t care what you were doing, not unless you want to tell me.”_

_“Fine, just shut up,” says Lalli._

_Emil tries for a few minutes, but apparently sex makes him chatty._

_“Sooo….” he begins, because he’s been wondering, “have you always known you’re, um, gay?”_

_“I don’t know what that means,” says Lalli._

_“It means that you, um, like to do what we just did with men and not women. If you’re a guy, I mean. And women, if you’re a woman.”_

_“Oh,” says Lalli._

_“So?”_

_“I dunno. I never thought about it. I never wanted to do that with anyone before.”_

_It’s Emil’s turn to say ‘oh’._

_“Will it be a problem?” asks Lalli._

_“No. You couldn’t read it, but there’s a poster that dates all the way back from the Old World in the army recruiting office we went to? The one you liked? It’s all about how the army’s proud to have people like that - people like us...” eeep, thinks Emil, “...in the army and stuff. No one cares.”_

_Emil’s starting to think maybe the man in the army recruitment office had maybe made some assumptions, but since he’s not - as it turns out - technically wrong, he’s not going to worry about it. He’s also beginning to wonder about that encounter with Alice and Lilly in the park._

_“That’s weird,” says Lalli “Why have a poster if it’s not a problem?”_

_“That’s what I said!” says Emil, then thinks of something. “Is it a problem in Finland?” he asks._

_“No,” he says, and he’s quiet for a bit, his knuckles still kneading Emil’s shoulder absently. “Tuuri would be happy,” he says, after a while. “About this.”_

_“Really?” asks Emil, not daring to go further down that avenue of conversation, but reaching out a hand to sweep through Lalli’s hair. He doesn’t think he’s ever going to get bored of this. He rubs his thumb lightly over and over at the bridge of Lalli’s nose, between his eyes, which fall shut._

_“Yes. She always wanted me to make friends, work better with people. And she liked you. She thought you were pretty. Even though you’re short and have five toes.”_

_Emil’s not going to even ask what that’s about. And so what if he’s short, Tuuri was shorter. He huffs a laugh. “Yeah, okay.”_

_“I’m getting food,” says Lalli, ducking out from under Emil’s hand. “Do whatever, I don’t care.”_

_“Sleep, Lalli. Sleeeeeeeep,” says Emil, rolling on his back in the sheets and grabbing for Lalli’s arm. Lalli slips out of his grasp, ruffles his hair on the way out and leaves. Emil starfishes out on the bed and settles in for a snooze within a snooze._

 

**CHAPTER 8**

Emil wakes to a tapping sound. By the angle of the light it’s afternoon, the room is all yellows and warm sun. The curtains are open and Lalli’s standing at the window, fully dressed, pointing insistently at the glass. Emil untangles himself from the sheet, looks down to see Sigrun, Mikkel, Siv and Torbjörn getting out of a cart with Onni behind them. Reynir is already standing at the gate holding a cat basket, Trond and Taru beside him.

What?

Emil sets a personal record for speed dressing and checks his hair in the mirror. He’s lucky, it pretty much looks after itself. He’s going to run his hands through it, but Lalli stands at his shoulder and does it for him, then heads downstairs while Emil’s still blinking at his own reflection.

Emil runs downstairs in time to meet Siv, who’s first through the door. Lalli takes her bag and hangs it on a hook. Siv blinks a bit.

“Oh! Lalli! You’re back! Emil will be pleased. And we are too, of course.” She’s distracted, and getting crowded into the hallway by the tide of people surging in behind her. She catches sight of Emil.

“Emil! We have guests! Tell me you cleaned!”

Whoops. Emil hasn’t. He’s been distracted. He was going to clean on Sunday, but that day’s been lost to napping and emotional reunions between best friends, or you know, whatever they are to each other now.

Siv is ever so disappointed in him, but Emil’s too busy greeting the people behind her.

“My duuuude," chirps Sigrun, punching his arm.

“I told you he was okay,” says Onni, to Torbjörn, gesturing at Lalli. Torbjörn looks guilty, greeting Lalli.

“Lalli, I hope you’re back to stay. It’s been a… trying… time without you. We’re glad you’re here, there’s so much to…” he trail off as Taru and Trond muscle past him in some sort of race, headed upstairs for the bathroom. “Well. We’ll get into that later,” he says.

Emil has hugged Sigrun, avoided Onni, and given Mikkel a solid handshake. He’s also clapped Reynir on the arm, making sure he stays out of the hugging zone, and given Kitty a scratch under the chin through the bars. Bosse sits on a chest of drawers and hisses at the cat box.

Trond sticks his head around the corner on the upstairs landing, and adds to the babble and chaos downstairs by yelling to complain about the lack of hot water from the taps in the sink. Siv looks furious. Emil ducks.

Onni is glaring at Emil suspiciously. Emil tries not to read too much into that. Mikkel turns and nods gravely at Lalli, but he’s smiling. Lalli shocks Mikkel by hugging him; he pulls away as quickly as he begins and Onni looks if anything more suspicious.

Emil has a sudden horrified worry, that maybe Onni _knows_ in some sort of spirit world mage-y way, or even a semi-psychic older relative way, and fusses with his hair automatically. Lalli drifts to his side, pats his shoulder in a conciliatory fashion.

Emil tries to make himself small behind him, before deciding he’s being cowardly.

He pulls himself together and stands up rifle-straight, sets his face, looks Onni in the eye and extends his hand for a shake.  Onni gives him a look that would melt glass - Emil would know - and still scowling, gives his hand a sharp jerk and nods.

Emil starts breathing again.

Mikkel catches his eye and raises an eyebrow. Emil gulps and grins weakly. Maybe he was worried about the wrong person. Still, he’s not technically worried about Mikkel. Mikkel is okay. He’d be okay with Mikkel guessing things. He thinks.

Taru leans over the bannisters from the hallway above and claps her hands. “So! Anyone else ready for a new adventure?”

===

Turns out Taru and Trond have New Plans and Siv and Torbjörn jumped at the opportunity to find a way to supplement their income. They’d not wanted to involve Emil because apparently - Siv’s words, she’s still annoyed about having to clean and change all the beds - Emil has been a hopeless and useless mess for a month.

Well. They’re not wrong.

Emil tries to make up for his failure with the chores by cooking dinner - meatballs and pasta, it’s not hard - and press gangs Lalli into chopping onions. Lalli in an apron, thoughtfully sucking gravy off one finger, is enough for Emil to drop a knife on his foot but it lands handle first and spares his toes.

They shut Bosse out of the room and crowd everyone around the kitchen table, pulling in garden stools for extra seats. Reynir holds Kitty and feeds her bits of meatball until she falls asleep on his lap, purring.

The plan seems to be for the original expedition team, plus Onni, minus Tuuri, to take day trips - or overnight! On occasion! Really, a week tops! - into the countryside surrounding Mora. These were once sprawling suburbs and there must - must! - be libraries and repositories of books close to home.  

Book selling has apparently turned out quite well, Emil’s bank account will be more healthy than he’s been expecting. The elder Västerströms and Taru and Trond think it’s worth a shot. Sigrun and Mikkel are up for it. Onni wants to be close to Lalli. Reynir will follow anyone like the sheep he is. Also, Emil will admit he’s probably not completely useless as a mage and maybe he’s learned something this summer.

Emil and Lalli’s lives look like they're getting interesting again.

Emil can live with that.

===

After their evening meal, they lounge around on the veranda at the back of the house, sipping cups of hot currant and lingonberry tea, resting on scattered chairs and cushions, Lalli perching on the wooden rail.  Emil thinks it’s a good evening to enjoy the late sun on their faces despite the evening chill. Fluffy clouds scatter across the sky, lit from below and glowing yellow and pink towards the horizon.

Eventually, Taru, Trond and Onni go back to their lodgings with promises to return for breakfast. They’ve all had a long journey and Torbjörn and Siv look just as tired; they turn in and leave the rest of the team to it, heading off upstairs bickering about expectations and finance.

The remaining five field-hardened expedition members stand at the rail and watch the sunset, such as it is, then one by one head for the warmer shelter of the sun room, Sigrun with punches to their arms, Mikkel with a grave incline of his head, Reynir with lots of words and hand wringing that Emil doesn’t really listen to but nods along to anyway, until it’s just him and Lalli, so tired they’re swaying gently but not quite ready to call it a day yet.

Emil’s still processing a lot of the last twenty four hours and his thoughts feel like they’re bleeding out his eyes and ears, they press so hard to crowd his head.

Emil hasn’t worked out what the rules are yet with this thing between him and Lalli and he’s afraid, but in the last year he’s killed trolls with his bare hands, put down a dying - dead? depending how you count it? - dog, lost a good friend. More recently he’s gone a whole month without Lalli and tonight he looked Onni Hotakainen in the eye and survived, so he slides a daring arm around Lalli’s waist and pulls him close to press a kiss against the tip of his ear.

Lalli ‘mrrrms’ and tenses, scrunching his shoulders up to his ears and Emil’s heart clenches in panic for a moment but Lalli twists into the touch, snakes an arm around Emil’s back to grab at his shirt and kisses his cheek, sharp and fast. Then Emil’s staring goofily into perfect, solemn, grey eyes and it’s probably a good thing everyone else is back indoors because he is gone, grinning like a loon and staring.

“Stupid,” whispers Lalli, in Finnish, but Emil knows that one and knows right now it doesn’t mean anything bad and could, maybe, perhaps, in this moment, mean everything. Emil strokes his thumb up and down in the small of Lalli’s back over his shirt, under the fabric of his coat.

“You going to stand there with the door open all night?” yells Sigrun, poking her head out the doorway before her eyes widen and eyebrows disappear into her hair.

Emil and Lalli stare at her, frozen, arms around each others waists.

Oh. Crap.

But Lalli just tightens his arms, tucks his pointy chin and leans into Emil, who’s looking sideways at this example of daring and - miracle - permission, too worried to move.

Sigrun stares back and blinks in shock for a few seconds but then she laughs, cocks a finger gun at Emil and purrs “Oooh, you sneaky tom-cat!” before dancing inside yelling, “Mikkel! I know something you don’t know!”

They follow and Sigrun is _still talking_ , turning to them and saying, “You know we’re all going to be based here, and we’ll need to double up on rooms anyway, so we’ll make sure you two get, you know,” she makes air quotes “ _alone time…_ ”

“ _Fan i helvete!_ ” yells Emil, he and Lalli crowding in the doorway.

“You guys are using protection, right?”

“Sigrun!” yelps Emil.

She frowns. “Wait, do guys need that kind of thing? Hey, Mikkel you’ll talk to these two about, y’know, boy stuff?”

Mikkel turns to Emil and says, “I am always here for you in my capacity as a medical professional if you want to talk about… ‘boy stuff’,” he agrees, nodding his head very seriously.

“ _Djävla skit!_ ” groans Emil, grabbing handfuls of hair at his temples. He is dying. He’s dead.

Mikkel rolls his eyes, unflustered, and silently extends the bag of cookies towards them.

Lalli - either oblivious or indifferent to the content of the conversation - sweeps past, tugs Emil along by his coat and pushes him backwards onto the sofa before hopping into his lap and grabbing two cookies from Mikkel’s outstretched hands.

Reynir’s green eyes are wide and confused as he gets up and helpfully pulls the door closed.  Sigrun is still laughing. She leans over Mikkel’s shoulder to swipe a cookie. Reynir says something irritating and probably pathetic in Icelandic that Emil can’t understand and Sigrun chirrups back, apparently relaying the content of the last five minutes if the parade of reactions on his sheep-like face is any indication.

Oh _god._

The room is too warm with the door closed, or maybe that’s just Emil’s blush. He lets his head fall backwards, feels the rough upholstery collides with his neck and drops the back of his wrist over his eyes.  He groans “oh my god” loudly because uuuuuggghhhhh, but winds his other arm around Lalli’s middle and then has to stop with his amateur dramatics because Lalli hands him one of the cookies.

Sigrun tells them tales of trolls they’ve killed this summer in Dalsnes and what Mikkel did with a pot of custard that saved the whole town when some horrendous abomination with more luck than most slipped through their military defences, and then through the custard. She illustrates her story with wide gestures and sweeping strokes through the air, tells them how Mikkel also helped the _real_ doctors patch up the townsfolk who suffered collateral custard damage - honestly there was only _minor_ scalding - and really, it was _so kind_ of her mom and dad to release them back to Sweden for this new expedition because they were really so good, back there, together and hey, also, now she thinks about it, Rey here is all trained up now. I mean three months is enough mage training for anyone, right?

She looks expectantly at Reynir, who is sitting with his hands on his knees not really knowing where to look or what to do with his face, not understanding a word. What a loser, thinks Emil,  only he isn’t actually annoyed with him right this very second and Lalli is warm in his lap, Sigrun is still talking, Mikkel is looking at her fondly and the room is starting to feel pretty comfortable.

“We killed a giant,” says Lalli, more or less in Swedish, and reaches over to sneak another cookie.

Emil feels all bubbly and proud and gesticulates with his free hand. “We did! It had four heads!” he tells them.

Sigrun wrinkles her nose, long legs slung over the arm of her chair, dismissing them with a wave. “Everyone has foreheads!” she says and Mikkel _snorts_ , before styling it out as a cough. Sigrun looks sidelong at him and laughs.  Mikkel explains to Reynir, with hand gestures, and Reynir gasps and looks worriedly over at Emil and Lalli, apparently not sure why he’s supposed to find this amusing.

Emil smirks back at the _very second class_ Icelandic mage perched across the room on his hard chair and lets himself relax into his own soft sofa. He tugs Lalli back to lean against his shoulder, threads his fingers through the fine grey hair and smiles as Lalli butts his warm head up under Emil’s chin.

This is us, he thinks.

The Winter Heroes of the Silent World, about to be sent out again for the advancement of science for the sake of the Known World.

===

_Emil goes to sleep that night amidst what he bashfully admits qualifies as snuggles, after some clumsily executed but otherwise quite nice activities he and Lalli are definitely going to practice as frequently as possible._

_When he opens his eyes, it’s to a dream forest beside a dream river.  It’s a desolate landscape, thrumming with despair and terror. Despite the threatening aspect of his dream, he can’t shake an underlying feeling that something, perhaps some hideous nameless dread presence somewhere, feels slightly put out._

_Emil attributes this to the fact that the haunting and sinister effect is being ruined by the little bird bouncing up and down on a branch in front of him, hopping, from foot to foot, wings spread wide and crowing “You totally got together, you totally did, admit it, tell me, tell me, ohmygod I don’t want details ever, but you totally did it, didn’t you, ohmygod I’m not even here, I can’t even tease him, this is_ so unfair. _Does this make you my cousin-in-law or something? Eeeeeeeeee!”_

_Oh my heart, thinks Emil._

_What he_ says _is: “Tuuri! Ugh. Shut it! Aren’t you going to be in trouble?”_

_“Not even heeeeeere,” sings Tuuri, fluffed up so much it looks like she’s about to float away.  “Oh, speaking of trouble,” she continues, narrowing her eyes and extending a wing in his direction, “You hurt him, I will find you and I will drag you by your pretty Swedish hair all the way to Tuonela.”_

_“What?!”_

_“I mean it,” she says, looking as fierce as a tiny, bequiffed bird can possibly manage. It’s not a lot. “You treat him well, or else.”_

_Emil finds it really, really hard to take her seriously in this form._

_Nevertheless._

_Well. When he remembers who she IS it’s really hard not to. So he holds out a hand for her to hop onto and lets her sit on his palm as he waggles it gently up and down, close as he can get to a handshake._

_“I’ll really, really try Tuuri. I really will,” he promises._

===

Emil awakes, sleepy, smiling. It’s pitch dark still, warm and comfortable under the patchwork cat quilt and Lalli’s head is resting on his chest.  He pushes his nose into Lalli’s hair, closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

 

 

THE END.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The antique poster Lalli and Emil see in Mora’s army recruitment office is [this one](https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/swedens-army-launches-new-pride-campaign-some-things-should-not-be-camouflaged/#gs.DtvM5TU)
> 
>  
> 
> Enormous thanks to Daniel, who provided gloriously thorough guidance on Swedish swearing; Rachael, who provided cat-based guidance on formatting speech properly; and miriad for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are aaaalll mine.


End file.
